Kidnapping Kagome
by Darksknight
Summary: Kagome thought that for once she was having a normal day. No Inuyasha dragging her back through the well, demons, or Hojo. So nice! And then it all turned sour when she was kidnapped in her own era. Now all she could do was wait in the basement with three crying girls for Inuyasha to come and save her. Now, what's this about 'mates?
1. Chapter 1

It was a normal day of school for Kagome Higurashi. Well, as normal as it could get anymore. After a night of begging, pleading, threatening, and then finally sitting, Kagome had been able to come back home. She had promised Inuyasha to be back as soon as school let out the next day, since she was only coming back for a test. He hadn't been able to argue with that, the main reason being his face was still planted in the dirt when she had told him...

Now she was on her way back home, and in a good mood due to the fact that she had actually done pretty well on the test. She wasn't even the slightest bit upset that her three friends; Ayumi, Yuka, and Eri, had insisted on walking her home. After all, the didn't want her having another feinting spell while walking home.

A perfectly good day, without problems, and without anything getting out of hand.

Yeah right. Nothing _ever_ went like that for Kagome.

"So, Kagome, how have you been keeping up lately?" Eri asked as they walked along.

"Yeah, you've been gone an awfully long time. Your rheumatism must be getting worse." Yuka added.

Aymui nodded. "Not to mention your disentemper. Though... I thought that was a dog illness..."

_Great. Looks like Gramps ran out of diseases... _"Oh, I'm fine, really. Don't worry about it." Kagome insisted with a smile, waving it off. "I'll be okay."

"Well, if that's so, then there's no need to get hung up over it." Eri said enthusiastically. "Let's talk about something else."  
"Yeah," Yuka helped. "Like that two-timing boyfriend of yours. Have you dumped him yet?"

"Well... not exactly..." Kagome bit her lip and looked at the pavement. "He's actually been pretty nice to me lately. I don't see why I should dumb him... I mean, it's not like he's a bad guy-"  
"Not a bad guy! He tried to kill the last guy that approached you! I'm telling you, you had better lose him now or you're going to be sucked up into all kinds of trouble."

"Uh-huh! You can't stay with him, Kagome. Don't let him think he owns you."

"Well..."

Whatever Kagome had been about to say was cut off by the sound of squealing tires. The four girls turned and watched as a black van came shooting around the corner, heading towards them. The girls froze, watching the car. It was going pretty fast, but they where on the sidewalk and not likely to be hit. Still, Kagome backed up a step, knowing Inuyasha would never let her come back to her era ever again if she got hit by a car.

When the van suddenly stopped besides the girls, Kagome wasted not time in trying to figure out what was going on. Her instincts had been upped a notch from walking into so many traps and battles, so she had learned to listen to them. Right then they were screaming at her to get out of there.

"Run!" She took off in a bolt, shortly followed by the three friends, but at the same moment they took off four three huge men jumped out of the van and came after them.

Seeing immediately that they were all in danger, Kagome quickly yanked the red tie of her uniform off and threw it on the ground. If anything happened to her eventually Inuyasha would come looking for his precocious jewel detector, and could trace her scent if easier if she left something to track with.

Her hunch turned out to be right as the men overcame them.

First Yuka was grabbed and yanked back, the man who had captured her quickly tying her wrists and then just holding her with one hand, even as she struggled and yelled. Next Ayumi was yanked back by a man, and thrown to the one who held Yuka; then she was tied up too. After that a guy caught up to Yuka, and he easily grabbed her and bound her wrists.

Kagome, able to run much faster than the other girls thanks to her time spent in the feudal era, lasted the longest. Eventually, though, she was also caught. She struggled about, almost getting free when she jabbed her elbow into the man's groin, but even she was eventually tied up and thrown into the back of the van.

Each girl was gagged, and then herded into the corner of the vehicle as the driver sped off with them.

Kagome's friends where all crying, but Kagome kept a stiff jaw and glared daggers at the man who watched them. She had managed to wriggle her way in front of her friends, somehow feeling like she had to protect them as best as she could. She had to stay strong for them, as least until help came.

Her ankles were tied, her writs bound behind her back, and she was gagged with a white bandana. Even so, the man in the back shrank under her glare of absolute furry. It was as if her eyes were screaming _when I get out of these robes, buddy, you are going to get your ass handed to you. _

As silly as it was, because she was a high school girl for crying out loud, it was still a little unnerving to see someone so calm in the situation she was in.

When they came to a stop each girl was roughly removed from the van and marched down into the basement of an old warehouse out in the middle of a run-down neighborhood.

When the girls were harshly shoved into a small room with no window and locked in Kagome started easing out of her restraints. She was able to untie the knot keeping her hands tied, and after that yanked the gag off of her mouth.

"Hold on guys." She said to her friends, who were all whimpering in fear. Kagome quickly untied her ankles, and then went to each girl and untied their hands.

Ayumi worked her gag off first. "We're dead!" She cried. "We're going to die!"

"I'm too young to be killed!" Eri whimpered.

"What if they aren't going to kill us?" Yuka whispered in horror. "What if... what if they're going to-"

"Enough." Kagome said, icy calm. She stood and leaned back against the wall. "Nothing is going to happen to us. We'll be fine."  
"How can you say that?" Eri cried. "How do you know-"  
"Help will be here soon. Don't worry- we'll be out of here by tomorrow afternoon at the latest."

"What do you mean?" Yuka asked, staring at Kagome through her tears.

"I mean what I said." Kagome said, crossing her arms. Then she sighed. "But... you three are going to have to promise to keep a promise."

"We're going to die anyway." Eri said bitterly. "Might as well spill your secrets now if you have any."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "We'll be fine." She said nonchalantly. "Now promise."

The three looked at each other uncertainty, but all said, "We promise."

Kagome nodded, and then looked over at her fragile human friends all huddled in the corner. "Well, you see, Inuyasha is going to come rescue us."

"Inuyasha?"  
She nodded, and then blushed. "You all know him as the two-timing jerk."  
"HIM?"  
"Yes, him. Except.. well, he's not always a jerk. He's really protective, and kind, and he's sweet when he wants to be. But also... he's not... exactly... er..."  
"Not exactly what?" Yuka asked, her tears lessening.

"He's not really... human, per say..."  
Three voices all said, "Huh?"

"Well, um," she rubbed the back of her neck and nervously laughed. "He's a hanyou."

"A what?"

"A half-demon."  
"Kagome..." Eri started sadly. "I think the stress has gotten to you..."

"Nobody believes in that old fairytale stuff. Youkai aren't real."

Kagome frowned. "Yeah, I know, you don't believe. But... when he busts the walls down and saves us please try not to freak out, okay?"

"Yep." Ayumi said sadly. "She's lost it."  
Then all three girls started crying again.

_Hurry up and come save us, Inuyasha._ Kagome thought as she turned away from the trio. _I really need you now._

.

So, after a couple requests, I decided it's time for the return of Inuyasha's demon side. Except this time in Kagome's era, and we're acting like the other time never even happened. And so, voila, I had some random fillers kidnap Kagome! Next chapter will mostly be in Inuyasha's POV- though it will still be told in third person. Thanks, and hope you like it. I love comments by the way... just so you know.


	2. Chapter 2

_When I get my hands on that sneaky wench she is really gonna get it._  
Inuyasha's feet hit the bottom of the well and he quickly jumped out, flying up to Kagome's room. He threw open the window and jumped inside.  
"You know what Kagome, I am so fucking tired of-" He looked around. "Damn it, she's not even fucking here. Where the hell is she?"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome's door flew open, and in bound Souta with a bag of chips. "Hi!"  
"Uh, hey kid." He said a little uncomfortably. "Where's your sister?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Ask Mama; she'll know."

With a growl Inuyasha prowled past the kid, and then jumped down the stairs. He came into the kitchen and right off the bat saw Mrs. Higurashi putting up some groceries. And was that... oh, it was. She had bought ramen!

He would get that in just a second though, for now he wanted to know where the hell Kagome was.

"Hey, where's the wench?" He asked loudly, plopping down in a chair.

Mrs. Higurashi looked back over her shoulder and saw Inuyasha. She smiled, but it quickly left. "Well, I don't actually know... she should have been home almost a half an hour ago. I'm actually starting to get kind of worried. Would you go out and look for her?"

"That wench." He growled. "I let her out of my sight for two fucking seconds and she get's into some sort of trouble. He stood up and started for the door, which had been explained to him just recently as the right was to exit the house. He threw it open, and then looked back over his shoulder. "She was at the 'sekool' place, right?" he yelled back at Kagome's mother, picking up the black bandana Kagome had left for him by the door and tying over his ears.

"Hai!"

"Keh." He shut the door firmly behind him and took of running for the school.

_I don't like this._ He thought. _She's late coming home to me all the time... but never coming back from school. Damn, what if she's really in trouble? When I see her I'm gonna give her a piece of my mind.  
_He was at the school in minutes, growling loudly in frustration. _Damn it all! I can hardly pick up her scent through all these other ones..._

He landed in the middle of the school yard, looking around for any signs of people. The doors to the school where chained closed, and the metal carriages where all gone. No one was there. He sniffed around the lot for a while, and then finally came across her scent.

About twenty minutes later, a couple times of back-tracking and starting off on the trail again, a whole bunch of weird looks, and mild threat later he came to a spot not even ten minutes from Kagome's shrine. He picked up her little red scarf thing and sniffed at it. It was defiantly her's. The whole area rank of fear and panic.

Kagome must have left the scarf for him to find.

A low and menacing growl left his throat as he glared down at the cloth. She had to be in trouble.

He follwed her scent as far as he could with the trail being so faint. He figured out that she was- or had been- in one of those metal carts. It was hard to follow the scent manly because it was nearing the hour where all the horseless carts filled the streets, and already there where a lot on the road.

Eventually he gave up on following the trail and sat down for a second.

_Think, damn it! Okay, so she must have been captured. Now... where the hell is she? _He growled again, earning him a look from the man walking past. Inuyasha glared at the guy, and then he was briskly walking away. _Alright, just think. If you kidnapped Kagome where would you take her?_ When his thought immediately took a turn into an era of his mind he labeled as Miroku's fault he shook his head. _AH! Stop it, you pervert! Think, Kagome is in trouble! Now, you're a bad guy. Think Koga-_ he growled. _Okay, not Koga, that would be even worse. Think... Jokotsu! Yeah, the so he's only got Kagome because he's an ass. Not because he wants to fuck her... So, well, in this era he would probably take her where there weren't many people snooping around. Uh... some run down off the radar location. And he's in that metal thing and so he has to get there by road. Coming from here, so he has to go strait down this road for a while. Yeah._

He got up with renewed purpose and started running. He followed the road, smiling a little at how there where no turns. When he finally did come to a place where the road split in four he frowned.

_Kagome doesn't have anyone going out of their way to get her in this era... that I know of. And so they probably came from somewhere close by. Going strait means going out of this village and heading to another. Right... _

He ran down the right branch in the road for a while, but after ten minutes he stopped.

_This part of her village is nice, and there aren't any places to keep her. She's not here..._

He turned around and started back for the intersection, all the while worrying his head off. Who knew what had happened to her? He didn't smell her blood, but that didn't mean she wasn't hurt now. When he caught the bastard who had kidnapped her he was going to rip them apart! … Unless Kagome decided to have a repeat of the whole Koga insentient. Or Mirkou. Really, she did end up standing up for a lot of the people who kidnapped her, the idiot.

When he had run down the left road for about twenty minutes he smirked a little. _Now we're getting somewhere._

The conditions had become worse and worse running down that road, as he was heading into an area Kagome called the slums. Then he came to a place with a lot of big, abandoned buildings.

_Fuck! She could be in anyone of these damned buildings! This is going to take a while..._

_._

Sorry about how I always have short chapters. I'm glad everyone is liking this so far! Oh, and that one person who keeps reviewing as Guest, and asked me to e-mail them, last time you put your address it didn't actually show up in the message because Fanfiction always gets rid of that somehow. If you really want to contact me, put your address with spaces in between each letter and symbol. Thanks you to everyone else who reviewed, including those who didn't review on an account. The next chapter will be out fairly soon. Please leave a comment and tell me how I'm doing, I welcome flames. XD Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

"I have to go to the bathroom!"

"I have go too!"

"I wanna go home!"

Kagome was still sitting against the wall, in that same room, with her three friends. Honestly though, sshe was really ready to leave. She had been sitting quietly listening to them cry and whine what felt like forever now- though she knew it had only really been a couple of hours.

"I'm so scared, you guys. No ones even told us what they're going to do to us!"

"Why can't they just kill us and be done with it?"

_I should just ignore it... I've been through worse, I can handle a few crying girls._

"What? But I'm too young to die!"

_Okay, if I've already let the cat out of the bag, why shouldn't I elaborate a little? Maybe tell them-_

"Me too! I haven't even been anywhere out of the-"

_That's it! _"Enough!" Kagome shouted, standing again.

Each girl was quiet then, looking up at Kagome with wide eyes. Kagome hadn't said anything after telling her friends that they would be rescued by Inuyasha, and so suddenly hearing her speak so loudly was a bit of a shock.

"I have been patent and quiet, I let you all whine and cry, and I didn't do anything to stop you when you started getting ideas crazier than mine. But now I have a headache, I'm tired, I have no weapons this time, and I'm in for a big lecture when Inuyasha does come and get us. So I would really appreciate it if you could you could all calm down and silently wait for our rescue."

For a second they where all quiet. Then they started to whisper amongst themselves.

"Wow, Kagome's... grown up." Ayumi relized.

Yuka nodded. "Yeah, she has. When did that happen?"

"Are you guys nuts?" Eri bit out. "She hasn't 'grown up'. She's just... weird. Why is she so calm? She's acting like she get's kidnapped on a regular bases! And what did she mean, 'she has no weapons this time'? Does she carry around a gun and get kidnapped when she's sick or something?"

Yuka and Ayumi shared a look, and then Yuka spoke. "Well... why don't you ask her?"

Ayumi nodded. "You might as well, Eri. We're not doing anything else anyway..."

With a heaved sigh, Eri turned to Kagome. "Kagome."  
"Hmm?"

"Have you been kidnapped before or something?"

_No use in trying to hide it. They're going to see Inuyasha after all..._ "Yes. But twice the guy who kidnapped me wasn't actually a bad guy, so I suppose that doesn't count. Well, at first one of them was bad.. well, both of them I guess since Miroku stole my bike. So maybe they do kind of count."  
"... Wh-what?"

Kagome nodded. "Yeah, I actually get kidnapped a lot now that I think about it." She blushed. Then suddenly she gasped. "Oh my gosh! I get kidnapped _all the time_! And I never even realized it! I... I _am_ a weak and useless jewel detector!"

"Uh..."

"I can't believe I'm just now noticing this!" Kagome cried. "When I get back I need to apologize to Inuyasha, and then ask Sango for hand to hand combat training." she nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that, and then maybe I won't get kidnapped next time."  
"Ah..."  
She put a fist in her hand, looking up in determination. "What am I doing sitting around here? I should be working on escaping! I don't have to just sit around and wait for Inuyasha to break down the walls and save me!" She stood up and determinedly marched to the door.

The three human girls all stared after her in confusion.  
Kagome crouched down in front of the door and looked into the lock of the door. She had already ruled out breaking the door down; it was too loud and beside that, the door looked like three inches of solid wood. The lock was just like the one at her house in the bathroom, and once Souta had locked himself in the bathroom with Kagome's dairy. Needless to say; she had figured out how to pick the lock.

Threading her fingers through her hair and finding no bobby pin- she had lost most of them flying through the air on Inuyasha's back- she growled in frustration. Yet another habit she had picked up from her favorite hanyou.

She turned to her friends and held out her hand. "Anyone have a hairpin?"

After a second Yuka sighed, and then reached up and took off her yellow headband. On each side was a bobby pin to keep it in place. Smart. With a small frown she handed it to Kagome; who snatched it up and ripped one of the pins off the side.

She turned back to the door and spent about three minutes jiggling the pin around in the lock before her efforts finally paid off. With a dull 'click' the lock slid back.

Kagome smiled smugly and got up, motioning to her three friends. Hesitantly they stood behind her, watching as she slowly turned the handle and slid the door open soundlessly. Kagome then crept silently out of the room, and looked up. They were at the bottom of a long cement staircase lit by a single light bulb at the top of the stairs. At the top was another door, which Kagome bet was also locked.

She turned to Yuka and handed the girl back her head band, but kept one of the pins. Yuka worried her lip as she slid the hair thing back into place. Kagome walked up the stairs, motioning for her friends to follow.

Ayumi made to start up the stair case, but Eir caught her wrist and held her back. She shook her head at the girl and then looked up at Kagome suspiciously.

Kagome just shrugged and then turned to the door.  
This lock was a little harder, and took almost five whole antagonizing minutes to unlock. Eventually, though, the door opened.

Kagome opened it with a triumphant smile and took a step up and out of the stair case.

And right into the eyesight of the four men who had kidnapped her. They were all seated a a card table with cigarets in their mouths, playing some kind of card game.

When Kagome stepped into the room they all turned and stared at her for a minute, while she just stood with a dear-in-the-headlights expression.

Finally one of the bigger guys; the one who had driven the van, stood. "Don't just sit there! Get her!"

Kagome booked it, running for where she remembered coming in. She had just closed her hands around the doorknob when an arm hooked harshly around her waist and hoist her back. She struggled, yelling and kicking. She almost wormed free once, but the big man who had her just adjusted his grip on her.

Her stomped back down the stairs with her, Kagome all the while yelling out profanities strait from Inuyasha's mouth. As soon as Kagome's friends saw the door open again Yuka and Eri fled back into the room they were being kept in. Ayumi looked up like she was going to try to help Kagome, but as soon as the man saw her he yelled back to his comrades. "Hey, another one got out, boss!"

"Punish them both." was the easy reply. "Don't kill them, our client will be here to pick them up tomorrow, and we don't have time to find anymore."  
The big nodded, and with Kagome still yelling, tromped back down the stairs. Ayumi let out a startled, "Eep!" and fled back into the room.

The man grunted, and then walked in after her. He threw Kagome to the ground harshly, letting her roughly land on her knees.

Blood trickling down her legs Kagome stood, furry in her eyes, and glared at the man. "When Inuyasha get's here..." She growled under her breath, trailing off.

The man suddenly turned to her, and grabbed her by the arm. He bushed her harshly against the wall and whipped out a knife.

"Listen up, little girl." he spat menacingly. "I'm done playing games. Try to escape again-" he brought the knife up to the juncture of her neck and punctured it into the soft flesh there. "-and I'll slit your pretty little throat." Kagome just glared at him, barely flinching even as the skin on her neck broke and a long trail of blood started to trickle down her collar.

With a final harsh look the man drew back and grabbed her arm. He cut the sleeve off quickly, and then slashed his knife along her forearm. Kagome's eyes grew wide and she bit her lip as a cry flew from her mouth. A few tears gathered and started to fall.

He grunted in satisfaction. He then took the sleeve and dipped it in the long stream of blood flowing down her arm. He smiled at her. "Are you afraid now, little girl?"

"No!" She bit out.

His eyes widened a little, and then he scowled at her. He took the knife and put it above her heart, letting the tip cut through her uniform and prick her skin. "Be afraid, little girl. I've killed more than one girl your age." He pushed against the knife a little harder, letting it sink into her flesh a couple centimeters. "I'd do it again without blinking."

Forgetting to punish Ayumi he left then, slamming the door behind it and locking it again.  
As soon as he left Kagome sank to the ground, letting the tears fall now. She sucked in a breath, and looked down at the front of her blood-soaked uniform. "Another uniform ruined." She said through her choked sobs, trying to lighten the mood.

Slowly the terrified girls crawled shakily over to Kagome. "Ka... Kagome..." Eri said. "Are you-"

"I'm fine." She said, smiling bitterly through her tears. She grabbed her left sleeve and tore it off, too. She started ripping it up into bandages, long strips that she could easily use to bind her wounds. "I've had worse." She said, glancing down at the scar on her side where the Shikon Jewel had been ripped out of her the very first time she had gone through the well.

Each girl just watched her as she expertly bound her arm up, the worst wound. Covering almost the whole uper-half of her right arm. Looking at the wound over her heart she bit her lip. She used up what was left of the strips of her sleeve to wrap around herself, under her arms, covering the wound as well as she could. She didn't have enough material to stop the bleeding, so she started to shred the hem of her shirt.

Once she could see her belly button she stopped, and then used that material to wrap around her frame one more time.

She couldn't do much for her neck, and it wasn't a very deep cut, so she let it be.

Her friends were all crying again, worrying over her but not helping. She sighed heavily and leaned back against the cold hard wall. She could here the men talking. Apparently the man had taken her sleeve with her blood on it to show his boss that he had hurt her. The man with the deepest voice- the boss, she figured- told him he didn't want it and to throw the thing outside. In this neighborhood there was so much junk on the streets no one would notice it anyway.

The door opened for a second and then closed.

"Guys," she said calmly, ignoring the sting of her injuries. "It'll be okay. Don't cry. Inuyasha is coming for us." _That thing smells like me heavily and has my blood on it. He'll find us for sure now._  
"It's not okay!" Eri snapped at her. "You're living in a fantasy world, Kagome! Your 'Inuyasha' isn't coming for us! We're dead!"

Kagome sighed and leaned back. _I sure have sighed a lot today._ "Just wait. You'll see." She looked over at the door, smiling a little. "Inuyasha will save us."


	4. Chapter 4

"Fucking damn it to fucking hell! Where in fuck's sake is she?" He growled, not really caring he was using the word over and over. It was sort of helping him with his stress. "I knew I fucking shouldn't have let the damn wench out of my sight for three fucking seconds! When I find you, Kagome, you're never leaving my damn sight ever fucking again!" Yeah... sort of helping.

He had been out searching for a while, and the sun was way below the horizon. He been getting more and more angry as the time crawled by, not to mention more and more worried. Not that he would ever tell anyone that.

He internally cursed himself over and over for letting Kagome get to him and leaving his Tetsiga in her room. He hadn't meant to; but he had a bad habit of taking it off when he walked around Kagome's house, ever since he had turned and the hilt had knocked over two very delicate vases and shattered them. She had yelled at him and started an argument, which ended in her insisting that he left his sword up in her room whenever he was at the shrine.

Now he regretted that since in his impatience he had left his sword in her room, not even thinking about the action as he set the sheave down right after opening the window.

Around midnight he came to the end of the neighborhood, finding nothing, and then he smelt it. Very faintly, on the wind. The smell of Kagome's blood.

"Fuck!" He launched forward, running for the smell as fast as he could go. When he came to a stop he picked up the sleeve of Kagome's uniform, soaked in her now dry and sun baked blood. With a terrible growl he stuffed the cloth into his haori. He looked up to the building in front of him and snarled. He sniffed again. He could smell some human males, a couple young human females, and Kagome. That meant he had found her. Her _and_ her captors.

_They're all DEAD._

He prowled forward, fighting at the demon blood that boiled up in his veins. He was royally pissed, and – though he would never admit it- more scared for her life than he had ever been for his own. He could smell her blood, and there was a lot of it spilled.

He stalked up to the 'do-or' and then with one swift motion brought his foot up and kicked it in so hard it broke in half as it flew out into the building's interior. Metal chairs scraped on the ground, and then four men ran up to the door shouting. They all saw him, and reached for things on their hips.  
Inuyasha snarled at them, tinges of red bleeding into his eyes, and they all froze for a second. He stormed past them, souly concentrating on Kagome's scent. He came to a second door, and this one he broke down as easily and simply as the first as the shocked men just stared.

The noise that a couple human girls had been making suddenly stopped.

He jumped down the stairs in one leap, and then came to the thickest door yet. He easily kicked it in, too, breaking it just like the two before it.

A couple startled screams echoed in the room, coming from the three human girls, but he didn't even look at them. His eyes- now almost all the way red- zeroed in on Kagome. When he saw her, covered in blood, barely wearing any clothes, her face streaked with tears, he lost it. All his rage bubbled up to the surface, bringing with it longer claws and fangs, jagged purple strips, and blood red eyes with blue irises.  
He had gone full youkai.

~o0o~

Inuyasha rushed forward to Kagome, who was propped against the wall breathing heavily, her face a pale. The smile that had formed on her face when he had first burst into the room disappeared, and she shakily stood. A little frown formed on her face.

She reached out to him with her uninjured arm. "Inuyasha..." he was in full youkai form. "Inuyasha, are you-"

She didn't get a chance to say anything else as he reached out and crushed her to his chest. She wasn't afraid for herself; she knew Inuyasha wouldn't hurt her, no matter what form he was in. But she was worried for him. He must have gotten hurt if he was in this state, but she couldn't see any wounds on his person.

She was about to ask him if he was alright when he released her and pushed her back behind him with an enraged snarl. The men that had kidnapped her came barreling down the stairs, holding guns.  
Before any one of them could say anything the man in front was suddenly suspended in the air by his throat.

The girls gasped.

Inuyasha threw the first one at the wall like he was nothing more then a rag doll, cracking the man's head against the concrete and letting him slump to the floor.

"Inuyasha, don't kill them!" Kagome yelled.

He looked back at her for a second and growled, but then turned to the next man, who was shaking with fear. He slashed that one across the chest, rendering him unconscious but not dead. Though he would probably need stitches.

"Inyasha, stop, please! Don't!"  
He ignored her this time, but she noticed he looked like he just wanted them all out of his way for now. But he had that look... like he would be back to kill them later.

He punched the third man in the face, breaking his nose, and then all that was left was the boss.

He had backed up the stairs and was pointing a gun at Inuyasha, who didn't even blink.

Inuyasha crouched, tensing to spring, and jumped.

_BANG!  
_"INUYASHA!" Kagome screamed, tears starting to form in her eyes as she raced forward.

Her friends were screaming, shaking in the corner.

Inuyasha was thrown back from the shot, but he got up the second he touched ground he was back up and heading for the man. Before the guy could even re-load he was down and out, his head hitting the ground as Inuyasha picked him up and slammed him down.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome stood at the bottom of the stairwell and called up to him. "Inuyasha, please-"

He was suddenly in front of her, jumping down the stair well and landing right before her. She stumbled back a couple of steps, startled.

He growled and moved forward, once more taking her and holding her to his chest.

"Inu... yasha..."  
He buried his face in her hair, taking in a deep breath. He growled and then held her out in front of him.

"What are you-"

He scooped her up in his arms and walked over to the wall, then sat back against it cross-legged. He sat her down in the middle of his lap, her injured arm facing away from him. He carefully took it in his clawed hand, and with the other sliced off her bandages. Her friends watched with wide eyes as he threw the bandages aside, and then lifted her arm to his face.

"Inuyasha, what are you doing?" She asked calmly. She was a little scared, not sure what was going on, but she was sure he would not harm her.

He said nothing, he simply opened his mouth and brought her arm to it.

"Inu-" She cut off with a small startled yelp, but then just stared.

He was... licking her arm.

At first she just stared, but when she realized that it wasn't hurting- in fact, it was starting to feel much better- she settled into his chest. She rested her head in the crook of his neck as he meticulously cleaned her wound with long gentle strokes of his tongue.

Looking over at her friends Kagome saw they were all standing with wide eyes and open mouths. She smiled a little and resisted the urge to say 'I told you so'. Instead she said, "You guys can sit down. This may take a little while."  
One by one they broke from their stupors, and then shakily sat against the wall opposite of her.

Yuka gulped. "So he's... he's a..."  
"A hanyou." Kagome helped.

Inuyasha growled at that, used to hearing it in bad context.

She smiled at him sweetly. "A good, strong, amazing hanyou." She said truthfully.

He looked at her out of the corner of his blood red eye and then got back to work cleaning her wound.

"Oh." Yuka said. "Is he... always like... this?"

Kagome laughed a little. "No, this is his full youkai form."  
"Oh..."  
"His youkai blood takes over as a defense and kills everything it sees when he's been mortally wounded." After the collective gasps, she went on. "This time... it's different, I guess. I don't think he'll hurt you." Then she frowned. "But I'll have to figure out how to get him to snap out of it before those guys come to or he'll kill them."  
More gasps.

Then Eri spoke up, timidly. "S-sorry for doubting you Kagome."  
"It's fine. I guess that would sound a little crazy."  
Eri nodded. "But... this is really your two-timing boyfriend? He's so... so..."  
"He's hot." Ayumi helped.

Kagome blushed a little.

Eri shook her head. "That's not what I was going to say. I mean, he's just, well... different than I thought he would be."  
Kagome laughed a little. "Yeah, that's Inuyasha for you."

"Kagome, I'm just-" Eri got up, tears welling in her eyes, and started walking towards Kagome. "I'm so sorry I didn't believe you. Can you ever-" She reached out to put a hand on Kagome's knee, and Inuyasha turned and snarled at her. With a small scream she was scooting back to her wall.

Inuyasha nodded, and then went back to the wound.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome said. She turned to Eri. "I'm sorry, he's just really protective. I'm sure once he's back to normal he'll like you just fine."  
Eri and the other girls just stared at her with wide eyes.

Kagome sighed, seeing Eri's tears spill over. "Eri, don't take it personally, okay? He doesn't really think well in this state; instinct throws everything else out of his mind. Usually it's just fight, fight, fight. Right now I guess his instinct is telling him to protect me. Sorry."  
The girl nodded shakily.

"So, you must really love him." Ayumi said suddenly.

"Huh?"

"He's... he's really scary Kagome. You must really love him to stay with him."  
Kageom blushed. "He's not usually like this, I told you. He's really a good guy. He's strong, and protective, and he cares for me-"  
Inuyasha, done with the wound on her arm, drew back and suddenly slit her shirt down the middle. Her face turned completely red. "Inuyasha what are you doing?"

He ignored her and carefully removed the shirt, leaving her in just her bra and bandages. He quickly removed those, too, and then inspected her chest carefully.

"Inuyasha!" She cried indignantly. She moved to cover herself but he caught her free wrist and held it to her side, her other one was trapped between them. She blushed an even darker shade of red than his haori and gave her slack-jaw friends a glare.

"When he comes back to himself." She said through her blush, "don't say _anything_ about this!"

Ayumi nodded woodenly, Eri blinked, and Yuka got out a strangled, "Hai."

He finished inspecting her torso for injuries other than the one just barely above her left breast, and then started to lick that one, too.

All the girls let out a little noise of surprise, and- while some no one thought it possible- Kagome turned an even deeper shade of red. "Inuyasha!" She hissed out.

He stopped his task for a moment to look up at her face.

"I should say 'it' right now." She grumbled.

He growled a little bit at her and nipped her chin lightly with his fangs, and then returned to her chest wound.

"So... um... how has school been lately?" Kagome asked her friends, desperate for a topic change.

"School?" Yuka cried. "You want to talk about school, of all times, now?"

"Um... yes?" She asked sheepishly.

"No way!" Ayumi said crossly. "We may have to sit here and wait for.. him to urm, get normal again, but that doesn't mean anything! I don't know about you guys," She said, looking at her two other friends, "but I want to hear about one of your adventures since you get kidnapped so often."

Two firm nods seconded the motion.

Kagomes sighed, her blush starting to lessen. "Well, okay I guess."

The girls all settled in, like it was kindergarten story time or something, and waited with eager expressions.

"Well... I was traveling with my friends one day. Miroku, a perverted..." she searched for something in this day and age to be his equivalent and found nothing. "monk. Sango, the..." Again, nothing to easily explain her. "demon slayer. A little kitsune youkai boy named Shippo, a feline youkai named Kirara, and Inuyasha."  
Inuyasha looked up at her upon hearing his name, saw that Kagome needed nothing, and dropped his head down to continue his work on her chest.

"We were traveling down a path and Inuyasha-" She thought over what happened, and decided to skip that part. "-had a confrontation with a wolf youkai named Koga-"

Inuyasha growled at the name and she gave him a gentle look.

"Before anything could get really out of hand, though, I told Inuyasha about... er, the power... boosters Koga had in his legs, and then Koga ran off. But only certain people can see these, erm, power ups, so he wanted me at his side so he could find more power boosters. Yeah. And so while we were walking down this path, he created a diversion, and then he swooped down and captured me while Inuyasha was fighting his wolves off."  
Inuyasha shifted her a little in his lap, down with her top and removed his haori. He put it on her, which she was grateful for, and then moved down to her knees. First, though, he stopped and sniffed at her skirt. His nose wrinkled in disdain, and then her skirt and panties where shredded, too.

"Eep! Inuyasha!" She yelled at him.

He growled a little bit and allowed her to cover herself with his top before moving down to clean her scraped knees.

The girls were all blushing, but none of them could ever hope to rival Kagome's deep shade of red.

"Anyway," She squeaked. "he took me back to his layer, but Shippo, the little boy, was with me and he came by accident, too, leaving a trail for Inuyasha to follow. Unfortunately the trail was made of mushrooms, so once we got close to his layer all of them were picked by the other demons."  
Eri shook her head. "This just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

Ignoring her, Kagome went on. "So I was trapped, but I managed to get Shippo free when he used his kitsune magic to make himself look like Koga. But when Koga came back and saw I'd risked my life to help my son-"  
"YOUR SON!" They all shouted.

Kagome blushed again. "I don't know why I just said that." She muttered to herself. Looking up at her friends, she explained. "Shippos parents were killed by some evil youkai who-" surprise, surprise, kidnapped her. "-also had power boosts. Inuyasha killed them, and then Shippo joined our group, and somewhere along the way I became his mother."  
When no one said anything, she continued her previous story, trying to ignore that Inuyasha had finished her right knee and had moved on to her left. "So when Koga saw I was so loyal, he came over to me talking about how strong and faithful I was, and about how I was better than any youkai women. Then.. well, he sorta said I was going to be his mate-"

The girls gasped, and Inuyasha looked up at her snarled. He grabbed her chin and made her look into his eyes, and then leaned forward and bit her chin again. When she kept looking at him, and didn't move or say anything, he let go of her and went back to her knee.

For a second she was quiet. Then Kagome decided to pick up the story. "... as you can all see, Inuyasha didn't like that very much."The wide eyed girls all nodded. "But eventually he came to get me. When he did, Koga and the others had already moved on to go to battle with some bird youkai that had power ups, since now I could see them. We won the battle, and when we were fighting Inuyasha came and got mad because I was helping them. After the battle, and after Koga had declared his love for me-"  
"Whaaat?"  
She sighed. "Will you stop interrupting?"

"He declared his love for you?"

"What did you say?"

"Is he hot?"

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Yes, he declared his love for me, I didn't say anything, and well... I guess he's hot. I never really thought about it... but yeah." as an after though, she added; "He has a tail."

"Huh?"

"Moving on!" She said, ready to get back to her story. "Inuyasha still wanted to kill him, but he was wounded for the fight, so I protected him and distracted Inuyasha until he could get away."

"How did you distract him?" Ayumi asked.

"Well, I'm going to have to show you in a little bit to get him to return to normal." She grumbled. "Anyway, Inuyasha got mad at me, accused me of some stuff, I got mad at him because he had recently been off to see his ex and had the gal to lecture me, we had a fight, I got even more mad and did the distraction thing so I could get away, and then I rode Kirara back home since she can fly."

…

"The... cat... can fly?" Yuka asked slowly.

Kagome nodded. "Pretty much."  
Inuyasha, done with her knee, moved up to the last injury on her person. He swept her hair out of the way and moved her so that she was leaning back against his chest. She let him, and didn't so anything to stop him when he started to lick her neck.

"So... you have demons fawning over you, horrible violent demons, and you turn down Hojo?" Eri exclaimed. "I would think you would want someone civilized! Not some weird demon!"

Kagome glared at her. "Actually, Eri," She said curtly. "It doesn't matter to me what they are. I love Inuyasha for who he is, and I love every part of him. _That's _why I turn down Hojo."

Eri blinked once, startled at the cold tone Kagome was suddenly using with her.

Kagome looked up at Inuyasha, who had almost finished cleaning up her last wound, and smiled. "I even love him when he's like this."

.

Whoa, this was a longer one than usual! I wouldn't have stopped there, but I promised I would update today, and I really want to go make myself a sandwich. I just want to say thank you again to all those whom reviewed. I really appreciate it, and it made me want to update faster to please you all.

Thanks again, and feel free to leave a comment, I love all of them!

(Oh, and for person who reviews as guest who wants me to contact them: Your email still didn't show up. You can email me, though, and I will reply. It's darksknight gmx . Com)


	5. Chapter 5

Everything was red, the anger inside him consuming. Every though, ever action, everything he did was pure youkai instinct. Usually when he found himself like this his brain was over-road with the instinct to protect himself, and when that was done sometimes the bloodlust set in. This time when he had lost his mind to the blood boiling inside of him something was different. His whole being screamed at him to protect her, to save her, to stop her pain. Every single action was for her.

When she had cried for him to stop, though he didn't understand why she would want her abductors alive, he settled for removing the harm in a way that would also abide by her wish for him not to kill.

With every one of the men out of the picture he had been left with the decision to dispatch the girls in the room as well. But by her demeanor, and her ease around them, he figured that they posed no harm and that she did not wish for anything to be done to them.

So then she was relatively safe. Next came her wounds.

He did what he had to do to remove any pain from her, carefully cleaning the wounds, and found himself pleased with the way she was comfortable around him. Every now and then she would say something that somehow he recognized as displeasing to himself, and let her know he found these things unacceptable. When she had used the name 'Koga' and 'mate' in the same sentence he was blind with cold furry for a moment. Those two did _not _belong in the same sentence.

He made her understand that, and went back to the task at hand.

Then he had smelt the men on her skirt. His scent was the only one that was supposed to be on her; so that thing had to go. It was easily shred with claws, and then she had covered herself in his own clothes. This was good; his scent was now on her.

Later he would work more on that.

As he moved up to the blood on her neck he felt the urge to make her know she was his. He wanted to make sure she knew she belonged completely and only to him. He didn't exactly know why, but he knew that he would figure that out later.

He was forgetting more and more as time went on. He forgot about the girls in front of them, about where they were, about killing the men who had dared lay a hand on her.

He was just... so completely concentrated on her.

Her neck smelled simply enticing. As he licked her final wound clean he tried to listen to what she was saying, and while the words made little sense, he felt a stirring recognition for his own name, and knew she was speaking of him. This was fine.

All he wanted to do was protect her. Everything boiled down to protecting her.

Then he knew who she was.

_Mate._

His mate. She was his mate. That was why his scent was so tightly laced with her own. _That_ was why she needed his protection. That was why he felt like he would do anything for this girl, held in his arms.

He recognized somewhere in the back of his mind that she was fragile, easy to break. He did not mind, for a human she was quiet strong, and he wouldn't break her because he was careful with her.

She was... beautiful. A word alien to him, but the concept was there. She was fire, graceful and lean, hot tempered and burning with life.

Life.

That made him think of the dead bitch, and how the girl in his arms thought he wanted the cold lifeless one instead. He would fix that. He didn't want that bitch, she was a walking corpse, repulsing to smell and not pleasant to touch. She also wanted to kill him.

No, that one did not even compare to the one in his arms. She was his life.

But... she wasn't marked in anyway shape or form. Besides his smell, but that was mostly from all their days of close contact, and did not necessarily mean anything.

He wanted that to change- in fact, all of him did. Even his human blood.

The feel of her neck under his tongue reminded him that it could change. He didn't even have to ask. But he would, because while he could not say it, nor could he name the feeling in his currant form, he loved the girl in his arms.

He moved forward and lightly nipped at her collar bone, causing her to look up.

Her lips moved, his name was spoken along with other words, and there was a question in her eyes.

He couldn't speak, really, not in her tongue. He growled softly, deep in his chest, and looked into her eyes.

The confusion grew on her face.

He moved forward and lightly cupped her cheek with his hands, and looked strait into her eyes as he slowly moved his head forward. All sound around them stopped as he moved. He gave her the chance to back away, to reject him, but she did not. He touched his lips to hers, careful of his fangs, and still she didn't move.

Her eyes slid shut, and then her lips moved against his. He pressed against her, his tongue asking for entry into her mouth, and when she gave him permission he smirked against her. With a small growl he drew back, and looked deep into her eyes again. She was blushing a pretty shade of pink, and the question was still there, but he could smell the answer he needed in the air around them.

She wanted him.

Now he just had to be sure.

He moved her hair from the back of her neck and touched his lips to the vertebrae there. She didn't move. Lightly he scraped his fangs against the back of her neck, and she shuddered a little.

He grinned again. He had his answer.

He was running off of instinct, so of course it was easy to mark her. He didn't even think about it as he bit down on his tongue hard enough to make it bleed. He licked the back of her neck, leaving a trail of his blood there, and then turned her face one more time to be sure.

He loved her, and he wanted to make sure she wanted this.

Her eyes held only her love for him, and that was the answer he had been looking for.

He turned her head back, and then looked at the blood on the back of her neck. He opened his mouth and breathed out a hot breath, lips almost touching the skin on her neck, but not quite. He put moved his arm around and placed his left hand on her bare skin so that his hand rested above her heart. He held up his left hand and put it on his own, and then lightly clamped his jaws around her neck. He did not draw blood or hurt her in any way.

The procedure was all about trust. She trusted him with her life by letting him put his jaws around her throat, and he trusted her with his blood and heart.  
He felt the heat coursing from his heart down through his arms and transfer over to her own, felt the blood on the back of her neck sink down into her flesh. Pink and red light swirled around them, their auras becoming part of one another. He felt a light pulsing on the back of his neck and right above his heart, and for a second everything was black.

Then he was himself again.

His fangs shrank back, and became the length they were meant to be. His eyes reverted to their golden hue, and the stripes on his cheeks faded. His claws shrunk down and back to their normal length.

She was his control, he realized.

Memories still with him, the normal lapse in his mind from when he turned full youkai missing, he turned to her.

"Kagome." He breathed out, relived that she was safe. Then everything slammed down on him at once and he groaned. "We... are so fucked. Everything... everything just got more complicated."

.

So, yeah, this chapter was short. Sorry. The last one was super long though, so I'm justified! Ha! Anyway, next chapter will be up sometime tomorrow. Thanks, hope you liked it, and I love your reviews. (In other words, I want more comments! Mwahahahaha! Just kidding, only comment if you want to, I'll still update ether way. But I do love those comments.) XD Thank you all again! Sorry for all the typos!


	6. Chapter 6

(Just a heads up- this chapter might be a little boring in the middle. Sorry.)

.

Kagome wasn't exactly sure what Inuyasha was doing.

He appeared to have finished liking the wound on her neck, but he hadn't done anything to remove her from his person yet.

So when he suddenly nipped at her collar bone she looked up at him in confusion. "What is it Inuyasha?"

He growled low in his throat, looking at her with smoldering eyes.

She was still confused. "What do you need?"

He cupped her chin and made her look into his eyes. She was confused, but she didn't look away. She wanted to understand what it was he needed. Then he had slowly started to near her face with his own, and little alarm bells started going off in her head.

_Is he going to kiss me? _She thought. _He doesn't know what he's doing! He-_

Then her girls friends had started freaking out, asking her what he was doing, but she still didn't pull away. In all honestly, even if his was in his youkai form, she _wanted_ him to kiss her. He got closer and closer, and then suddenly he was kissing her.

_Oh._

Her friends had gone ecstatic, but she hadn't really been paying them much attention. All she could think was that Inuyasha was kissing her, and he was also being gentle. She pressed back against him, adding her own pressure to the kiss. When his tongue licked her lips in questioning, she opened her mouth for him in permission. She felt him smirk against her, and then suddenly he drew back from her with a little growl of... contempt?

He looked into her eyes, a silent question there, but she didn't know what he needed.

He moved the hair of the back of her neck gently, letting the black terraces cascade down her shoulder in gentle waves. He moved back and pressed his lips to one of her neck bones. Still confused she sat still, letting him do what he wanted. When he lightly traced his fangs down her neck she shuddered in pleasure.

Suddenly he licked the back of her neck, and left something warm and wet there, but more than just saliva. She didn't know how she knew, but she was fairly sure it was blood that he had trailed on the back of her neck.

He turned her face to meet his eyes one last time, still looking like he was asking a question with them. She put forth all the trust she had in him and let it show in her eyes, and he smiled a little. He pushed her head back to look at her friends, who were all staring in question.

Kagome mouthed, _I don't know_ to them. She almost shuddered again then, when he felt his hot breath seep across the back of her neck.

His arm snaked around her then, and he slid a hand under the red haori that covered her, placing a clawed hand above her heart. She let him; she loved him and trusted him no matter what form he took. He moved a little bit behind her and then she felt his teeth gently close around her neck. Her friends started yelling in alarm, but she heard them as if from a distance. They no longer really held any of her attention.

She felt an odd pulsing over her heart and the back of her neck, a slight warm stinging started. It wasn't entirely unpleasant; it was a lot like the feeling one gets after there leg falls asleep, and then her heart started beating stronger. Her blood felt warm, and the stinging on her neck turned into a scorching heat that still wasn't painful.

She could suddenly see pink and red light around them, as could her panicked friends by their expressions, and a feeling of calm overcame her.

The light went out suddenly, and for a moment Kagome couldn't see anything. And then she heard his voice.

"Kagome."

She turned and saw he was once more himself, the hanyou she loved more than anything. Without realizing he he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back into his chest. He let out a thick breath of air, and groaned. "We... are so fucked. Everything... everything just got more complicated."

Her friends were still skwacking, nervously fluttering about like a bunch of startled hens.

Inuyasha's ears twitched, and suddenly Inuyasha growled, the girls' level of noise looking to be too much for him. "Will you all shut up?" He roared at them, clutching Kagome to his chest like a shield.

The girls all fell into a startled silence then.

Kagome smiled. "Girls, this is Inuyasha." She elbowed him in the rips.

"AH! That hurt, bitch!" He roared in her ear.

"What do you mean it-" She turned and looked at where she had elbowed him and saw the spot was red with blood. "What?" She asked in disbelief.

He took of the clothes covering the spot, leaving his chest bare for her. "Fix it." He growled, pointing.

She looked close and saw there was a hole in his side. She gasped. "The bullet." She said faintly. She looked up at him and bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha." she whimpered.

"For what? Just fix it." He said, pointing at the wound.

"You have to take out the bullet."

"The what?"

"It's a little metal thing. Just pull it out."

He looked down at the injury and nodded. She looked away as his claws dug in the wound, opening it wider, and then he threw down the bloody bullet with a growl. She turned back to him and resisted the urge to cry. "I'm sorry." she said again.

"It's fine." He mumbled. "I don't even know what you're apologizing for."

She reached over and grabbed what was left of her uniform shirt, ripping what was left into bandages. She started wrapping him up. "For everything." She muttered. "You getting hurt because of me, getting kidnapped all the time, for making you worry."

He smirked. "Damn strait." He said cockily.

She glared at him them, tying off the make shift bandage. "Inuyasha-" She started to growl out, but something on his chest caught her attention. Her eyes flew up to look at his heart, and over it was a purple crescent moon, and coming from the center where kanji characters. In her name. "What is-"

Someone loudly cleared their throat. The pair looked back and saw the girls all blushing, looking at them. It was then they realized what kind of position they were in. Kageom was sitting in Inuyasha's lap, her legs straddling his hips, his hands clamped on her sides, and both of them in partly undressed. On top of that they were both unaware off it.

Weird.

They both light up in furrows blushes, but Inuyasha didn't really want Kagome away from him. He easily picked her up and turned her around, plopping her down in his lap with her back leaning into his chest, though he was careful to position her away from his wound.

She looked up at him, and pointed at the mark on his chest. "Wh-what is that?" She asked.

"Huh?" He looked down at it and then frowned. He looked back up at her. "A mark."

"A.. mark?"

"You have one, too." He said, looking away from her.

"What?" She opened up the haori and looked, and sure enough, there is was, with Inuyasha's name in place of her own. She paled. "When... what... how..."

He snorted. "I marked you, okay?" He said, shrugging it off.

"What does that even mean?" She asked faintly.

Instead of answering her, he moved her hair aside and put a hand on her neck. "You have a mark here, too." He added.

"What?"

"Um, excuse me, can we um, get talk about this later?" Yuka suddenly inturupted. "It's nice that you two have matching tattoos, but I really need to get home."  
Kagome looked up at her and smiled sheepishly. "Of course." She muttered. She started to stand, and along with her Inuyasha. She walked over to her nervous friends, and smiled. "Oh, Inuyasha, these are my friends."  
He just glanced at them.  
"Eri, Yuka, Ayumi-" She pointed at each one of them. "and they are not the reason we were kidnapped." She added.

"Uh, great." He said uncomfortably. "Can we just go home now? I told Sango we'd be back to save her from the lecher before nightfall, and they're probably worried about you."  
She frowned. "Oh. Okay. But we need to get each of them home, too."  
"They have legs." He grunted. "They can walk."  
"Inuyasha!"

"What, it's the truth!"

"We aren't leaving them here!"

"I can do whatever the hell I want, bitch."  
"Sit."

He hit the floor, growling. "Kagome..."  
She turned to her wide eyed friends and smiled. "We'll drop you off at home, okay?"

Three nods.

"Oh, but you can't tell anyone about this." She added, pleading a little. "Please, just say that some huge guy knocked them all out, saved you, and them left. Just you three were captured, okay? I walked home alone. You can report to the police that they're still here, and then everything will be fine. Please?"

One by one the girls nodded, Eri sighing. "I still can't believe this is actually happening." she said.

Kagome smiled and grabbed them each in a big group hug. "You guys are the best!" She said happily. "We'll walk you all home, right Inuyasha?"

She looked back at the hanyou, who was rising from the floor. "Keh. That will take to long." He picked up his clothes and Kagome's shredded uniform. He put on his and then wadded her's up and stuffed them in her hands. Then he crouched down and pointed at his back. "All of you get on." he muttered.

The girls looked at each other uneasily. Kagome smiled. "Trust us." She said.

"Okay..." Ayumi said, coming forward and wrapping her arms around his neck. Kagome resisted the urge to growl at her- who knows why she wanted to- and forced a smile.

Yuka hesitantly stepped forward, and then Eri, and somehow Inuyasha was able to sort it out so that he was carrying them all. He turned to Kagome and held out his arms. "Come on." He said gruffly.

She walked up to him and he swooped her up into his arms, hooking one under her knees and the other under her back.

He looked forward and smiled. "You three had better hold on tight." Then he launched off.

Kagome smiled when they all gasped, and before any of them knew it they were up in the air above the city.

"This is... incredible." Ayumi said.

"Yeah." Yuka added. "You do this all the time?" She asked Kagome.

Kagome just nodded. "Right there Inuyasha." She said, pointing to Yuka's house. He nodded as best as he could with three girls clutching onto him, and landed. Yuka got off his back and waved, then off they were.

Next to go was Eri, with a smile and a "See you later, Kagome!"

Ayumi was last to be dropped off. "You guys are so cool!" She announced, and then turned and ran inside.

Finally it was just Inuyasha and Kagome, but when Kagome moved to get on his back he just tightened his hold. She took that as a sign he wanted to carry her like that for the time being and leaned into his chest.

"Inuyasha." She was oblivios to the world around them as they soared over modern Japan, eyes on him.

"Hmm?"

"What does this mark mean?" she asked, pointing at her chest.

He didn't look at her, he just blushed a little. "Ask Sango, she'll know." He said.

She nodded. "Okay, though I'd rather hear it from you."

He said nothing, instead he landed easily on the shrine grounds. Still not letting her go he walked towards the door and opened it while somehow keeping a hold on Kagome, then marched inside.

"Kagome, Inuyasha?" Her mom called from the kitchen.

"It's us!" Kagome yelled, looking up in apology when Inuyasha flattened his ears against his head.

Mrs. Higurashi came running out, throwing a huge hug around the hanyou, sandwiching her daughter between them. "Thank goodness you two are alright!" She cried.

Kagome smiled, looking at Inuyasha in silent request to be put down. He let her climb out of his arms as soon as Mrs. Higurashi drew back. Kagome adjusted Inuyasha's haori so it covered her better and then stepped forward and gave her a hug and smiled at her. "Of course we're alright; Inuyasha was protecting me."

Her mother smiled fondly at him and allowed Kagome to walk past her into the kitchen. "Thank you, Inuyasha." She said, giving the startled hanyou another hug.

He stood frozen in surprise for a moment, and then hesitantly returned the gesture.

Kagome threw what was left of her clothes in the trash and sighed. She walked back out and smiled at Inuyasha from were he stood. Sensing his discomfort at her mother having embraced him so long she stepped forward and grabbed his hand. She tugged him away from her mother and smiled. "I'm going to take a shower, mama, could you get Inuyasha some ramen?"

Inuyasha 'feh'ed and crossed his arms. "If any one needs to be fed it's you, wench."  
Mrs. Higurashi turned to the kitchen. "I'll make you both some food." She said over her shoulder, and then disappeared into the room.

Inuyasha turned to Kagome. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine." She said in confusion.

He nodded. "Good. Go take your shower."

She smiled lovingly at him and hugged him one more time. "Thank you, again, Inuyasha."  
He nodded and easily returned her embrace. "Of course, stupid. I told you I'd protect you."  
She let him go and started up the stairs. "Go eat, I'll be there soon."

He nodded, and then turned to follow after her mother.

With a sigh Kagome climbed up to her room, grabbing some pajamas to change into. She headed for the bathroom, and then shed Inuyasha's clothes once she had come inside and locked the door. She turned on the shower and stepped into the steamy water, sighing.

_I can't believe this. Tonight was.. crazy. And Inuyasha isn't even mad at me for getting captured again! Plus- _she looked at the mark._ -I still have no clue what this is. I'll have to ask Sango like he told me when we get back. And I wonder if he even remembers what happened. He usually goes crazy trying to find out what he did, but this time he was... calm-ish. Like he knew what had happened and that he didn't really know what to do about it. Wait... if he does remember he knows he took of my clothes! _She thought blushing._ Geese, I can't believe him! Oh well, it's not like he was being a perv or anything. He was just checking for injuries. Though why he took my skirt off is a mystery. I'd ask him but I bet he'd be embarrassed to know I remembered that he did that. Oh well. _

Having finished washing up she turned off the water and got out. After toweling off she hurridly slipped on her clothes and then yanked a brush through her hair until all the tangles were out. She threw her still slightly damp hair up in a pony tail and then hurried downstairs with Inuyasha's haori in hand.

She ran to the kitchen and hopped down in her seat by Inuyasha, handing him back his clothes. "Here you go."

He took it back, and unless her imagination was playing tricks on her, took in a deep smell of it and smiled before putting it back on.

Her mother came up behind Inuyasha and put a huge bowl of ramen and shrimp down in front of him. "There you are dear!" Then she went over and put a smaller one in front of Kagome. "And there- oh, Kagome, what's on your neck?"

As soon as she touched the mark a slight pain went out from the mark. Inuyasha let out a snarl as soon as Kagome's mother touched it and turned to look at her fervidly. Mrs. Higurashi snatched back her hand in surprise, and as soon as she did Inuyasha stopped his growl and the pain went away.

Inuyasha blinked in surprise, and then sat back down. "Sorry." He muttered.

Mrs. Higurashi blinked just like he had, and then nervously laughed. She came around the table and sat down in front of them. "Is there... is there something you want to tell me?" She asked, not pressuring them, but really asking if the wanted to tell.

"This is what I meant by more complicated." Inuyasha muttered as he stood. "Kagome, finish up your food while I talk to your mom, okay?"

Kagome looked up him with wide eyes, rubbing the back of her neck. "Yeah... okay." She found herself saying. She watched as Inuyasha and her mother went to the living room, and then let out a breath of air.

_What the heck was that?_


	7. Chapter 7

Inuyasha pulled Kagome's mother into the living room, the whole time thinking about how weird it was. Really, he never, ever, in his life, thought that he would be doing this.

Explaining the mark on Kagome's neck to her mother.

He watched her warily as she sat down on the old green couch. He chose the worn armchair across from her to perch on, then bit his lip. "Ur... I... uh.." _Damn, what the hell am I supposed to say?_

"Whatever it is, Inuyasha, you can tell me." She said with a small smile. "I doubt I will really mind."  
_Yeah, sure, like you aren't going to care that your daughter is mated to a filthy half-breed. _"Well... uh, I just..." He growled at himself. Why couldn't he just spit it out? "Kagome... is my... uh, mate."  
"...Okay? Would you explain that to me, please?"

"I'm not really sure how to." He muttered. "It wasn't even me that claimed her, it was my full youkai form. So I don't know the effects."

She nodded. "Well, why don't you try to guess?"

"Okay, I guess. I-" he stopped, his ear twitching, hearing Kagome get up and put her bowl in the sink. "Hold on, let me get Kagome over to my side of the well." He got up and walked out of the living room, coming over to Kagome and without realizing it put his hands on her hips. She hardly noticed it ether, it just felt... right.

"You want to talk with Sango?" He asked her, breathing over her shoulder and watching her hands as she scrubbed her dish and his own clean.

She nodded. "Yeah, but isn't it a little late? The sun will rise soon."

"I bet they're awake worrying about you anyway."

"And you." She added. Finishing up cleaning out the dishes she turned to him wiped her hands on her pajamas and leaned back into his chest. "But... I bet they want to go to sleep. We'll take a trip to the hot springs tomorrow and talk about it." She turned around in his grasp, and looked up at him. "Though I would rather you tell me."

He shook his head. "I'm not so good with... words."  
She smirked. "Yeah, I noticed."

Hearing Kagome's mother smother a laugh on the other side of the room Inuyasha turned his head to look at her. When he saw she was looking at him and Kagome, he looked at them as well.

He had his arms wrapped around her waist, she had her's around his torso, his chin rested on her head as she lay it against his chest.  
Blushing bright red he let her go and jumped back, clearing his throat. "Ur, uh, we should go. Go get your bag, wench."  
She blinked at him in surprise and then she blushed too. "Uh, okay." She rushed upstairs without looking back and slammed her door closed.

He he crossed his arms in his haori. "Keh."  
Mrs. Higurashi laughed a little and then came over to Inuyasha. "I understand that you know what you're doing and all, but do you think it's smart to go back to your time now?"

"Wadda ya mean?"

"Well Kagome looks exhausted, so do you, and while I know you want to go back in case the others are worrying this wouldn't be the first time you came back later than you said you would with my daughter. So why don't you both stay the night here and then eat breakfast with us before you leave tomorrow?"

Inuyasha thought it over, and while he really didn't like Kagome's time, it made perfect sense. That would be the smartest thing to do. "Keh. Fine."

He brushed past Kagome and started up the stairs after here. "Hey, Kagome! Stop packing your bag, we're staying here, wench!"

Mrs. Higurashi smiled warmly and then turned the lights out, all the while silently thanking the hanyou for bringing her daughter home safe.

Inuyasha opened Kagome's bedroom door and marched in, closing it behind him.

"Oh, Inuyasha, I was-"

"We're staying here, bitch."

She paused her packing. "We are?"

"Just for the night." He said, internally a little surprised at her lack of caring that he had called her a bitch. "We're heading back first thing the sun rises tomorrow."  
She groaned. "Can't we please sleep in for once, Inuyasha?"

"No way, wench. While we sleep Naraku is out there collecting more jewel shards."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on Inuyasha, a couple minutes isn't going to make a difference."

"Feh."

She smiled a little, interpreting the noise to be a form of consent, though she wouldn't tell him she knew that he had given in and sad his own 'yes' in the end. She closed her bag and then stood up to walk past Inuyasha to flick off the light.

As soon as the light turned of they both drew in a breath of air. In the darkness they could became acutely aware of each other, knowing each others exact positions in the dark. A silent pull between the two of them quickly formed, and nether commented on it. Kagome silently relented to sort of answer the pull for only a moment so that she could get the urge over with.

While walking past him she made sure to let her shoulder brush up against his side. Her hand touched his, but as soon as it did her eyes widened.

She could see. Every little thing in the dark, like she was looking through some sort of night vision goggles.

She blinked, and as soon as she stopped touching him it was gone. Silently she reached out and grabbed his hand. Without words from ether, she pulled him over to her bed. They could feel what the other was wanting, and right now both of them just wanted contact.

He sat on the floor and leaned against her bed as she crawled in, letting her hand fall of the edge of the bed and lightly touch his ears. The vision returned, as well as a feeling of being more complete. Like she had been breathing out of one lung her whole life and suddenly both were working. Still in the back of her mind she could feel something missing, but she did not comment on it.

When her fingers lightly gripped his ear Inuyasha let out a growl. "You shouldn't do that." He said.

"Why?" She asked quietly, rubbing the tip between her index and thumb.

He reached up and gently took her wrist, moving it away from his ears. "Just trust me." He grunted.

She frowned a little, sad that their contact would cease. She didn't want to lose the feeling his touch was currently giving. Everything in the dark looked so... wonderful.

He stood, sensing her thoughts, and without a word climbed over her to sit on her bed with his back against the wall. He was touching her still, his knees against her back as she lay curled up on her side in front of him, but the night vision didn't come back.

Inuyasha could tell that whatever his touch had been allowing her before wasn't working, though faintly he could still get the feel of her thoughts. And she didn't like that it wasn't working.

He smiled faintly, sad that the weird fluke was over, and brushed a stray lock of hair off her face. As soon as his skin touched her own the feeling returned, that completion, and he sighed a little.

Without saying anything she moved her hand up and pulled back the covers. He cocked his head to the side, not understanding. Kagome reached up and grabbed the front of his haori, gently tugging him down to lay behind her.

He followed her silent command and lay behind her, his whole front pressed against her back, and said nothing as she pulled her blanket back up over the two of them.

Hesitantly he put his arm around her waist, the other he slid under her head, so that she could be touching his skin. He sensed her smile, and then he felt her hands clasp his. One hand, the one belonging to the shoulder she was laying on, snaked out and grabbed the hand attached to the arm her head was pillowed on. The other hand found the one laying splayed across her hip.

The two of them just lay there in silence, and eventually the two fell asleep.

~o0o~

Souta woke up and came down stairs to find his mother making a big breakfast. Too big for just him, her, and gramps. And that meant...

"Sis and Inuyasha are here?" He asked with a big smile.

She nodded. "Yes, they're here. Set the table while I go wake them up."

Souta nodded excitedly and ran to the cupboard to get plates.

Mrs. Higurashi soundlessly climbed up the stairs and padded down the hall, then came to the closed door of her daughter's room. She carefully turned the doorknob and stuck her head in, looking over at the bed and then smiling. Her daughter was in bed, as was Inuyasha for once. His whole form was easily sprawled out over the bed, his head taking up the whole pillow. Her daughter was laying on top of him, her face pressed into the side of his throat, his head leaning on her own. She could tell that her legs lay in between his under the covers. Her right arm had come up to lay on the other side of his head, resting on bare skin, while the other arm was tucked under his neck. He had one of his arms laying leisurely by his side, the other one was wrapped around her waist.

_If I were to wake the two I would probably never catch them like this... not to mention Inuyasha's reaction. I don't want that kind of price on my head. But.. I do want something to remember this by._

Silently Mrs. Higurashi hurried from the room, down stairs, and easily found her camera. Quietly creeping back up stairs she looked through the crack in the door and smiled. They where just as she had left them. Silently she raised the camera, took a couple pictures for later on, and then ran from the room with a huge smirk.

_I know just the person to take both Kagome and Inuyasha's wrath. _

Back in the kitchen she found that her son had finished setting the table. Holding back a huge grin she calmly said, "Souta, dear, would you go up stairs and get your sister and Inuyasha up?"

He gave her a funny look. "Didn't you just go upstairs to go that?"

She waved the question away smiling. "Souta I have no idea what you're talking about."  
He just nodded, not really questioning his mother's odd behavior. He flew up the stairs and down to his sister's room, throwing the door open.

Instantly he saw why his mother had sent him up here to wake them. _That traitor! _He thought in panic.

At the sound of the door opening so rambunctiously Inuyasha stirred. He grabbed Kagome around the waist and turned, all the way around, squirming a bunch in the process.

Souta looked at the two with wide eyes as Kagome's head tossed on the pillow, her back now resting against the bed. Her arms started moving around, feeling for something in her sleep, until the came to Inuyasha's head. She hugged his head and settled back into sleep. Inuyasha pressed his face into her body, moving his head back and forth until he found a comfortable position were he could breath. None of this made Souta stare with huge eyes; it was the position of the hanyou on the girl that had him trying not to blush.

Inuyasha had his face snugly pressed into Kagome's bosom, his body lying between her legs. His arms securely wrapped around her torso. And from what Souta could see he had one of his hands underneath her pajama shirt and pressed to her back. The covers had been thrown over to the wall when they had turned, and Souta stared with a blush as Kagome's leg moved with a mind of it's own and wrapped around one of Inuyasha's.

_I'm going to get killed when I wake them up!_ He thought in a panic._ And I won't even have any evidence of how they look now to rub in their faces later! Unless..._He smiled suddenly, and then raced out of the room and down stairs.

He came into the kitchen, and then zeroed in on his mother. "I need the camera!" He declared in a rush.

His mother laughed merrily. "Souta, dear, I already got pictures-"

"They moved."

That was all he had to say. His mother snatched the camera up off of the counter and hurried up the stairs, both of them grinning madly.

When they stepped into the room the both had to bite back laughed, especially Mrs. Higurashi. After taking a couple pictures the two looked at each other, and then hurridly ran back into the hall.

Mrs. Higurashi raced back down to the kitchen with the pictures, leaving Souta to decide how to wake them up.

He wasn't stupid, he knew that even if he just pounded on the door and pretended that he hadn't seen Inuyasha would smell that he had been in there. He sighed, and then decided that if he was going to suffer Kagome and Inuyasha's wrath he might as well get a really good laugh out of it.

Smiling deviously he sauntered back into the room and approached the bed. "Oh my gosh!" He yelled loudly. "Mama, Inuyasha and Kagome eloped!" He was secretly proud of himself for knowing the word, he had learned it two weeks ago.

Both of their eyes sprung open, and for a minute all was deathly silent; the calm before the storm.

Then all hell broke lose.

"SOUTA!" Kagome screamed, pushing Inuyasha's head away from her breasts as he tried to untangle their legs. "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"

Souta knew no matter what he was still in trouble, and so he decided to put one last line forth. "And Kagome's already got pregnant hormones!" He yelled.

Inuyasha and Kagome both turned beet red, and Inuyasha turned with a shaking fist. "You better scram now, runt, I don't care if you _are _Kagome's kid brother-"  
Kagome didn't stop to let Inuyasha finish, she just kept on sent him the death glare and kept screaming. "GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"

Souta scrambled out of her room, slamming the door behind him, and then let himself start to laugh as soon as he hit the kitchen.

Inuyasha and Kagome each took one look at each other with blushed such a deep red Inuyasha's hakama and haori looked pink in contrast.

"I, uh, got, to uh, keh! I'm going back!"

"Oh, no you're not!" She growled at him- quite impressively for a human. "I have to face them, so do you!"

"Bitch, I w-"  
"Inuyasha, sit."

His face slammed into her bed.

"Don't you dare look." She said, already shedding her pajamas and hurriedly putting on her usual uniform.

"Kagome!" He snarled from where he was pressed into her bed.

"Come on, let's go." She grabbed his hand and tugged just as the spell started to wear off. She pulled him along behind him, running the other hand through her hair and smoothing it down as she descended the stairs.

First thing they got to the bottom everyone in the room turned to look at them, and their blushes returned full force.

Inuyasha suddenly dropped her hand. "I need to, uh, check on something." he stuttered, and then flew from the room and out of a near by window, heading for the well.

"Traitor." She muttered, then took a step forward. She shot Souta a glare and put her hands on her hips. "How many times have I told you not to go in my room without knocking?" She growled.

"Ur... uh... a couple I guess." He muttered.

"A couple! Try a couple h-" She suddenly cut off in her speech, drawing in a gulp of breath and clutching at her heart. She sunk to her knees suddenly, and then fell to the floor.

"Kago-"

She opened her mouth and let out an agonized scream, tears forcing past tightly shut lids and spilling to the floor.

"Kagome!"

.

Cliiiifffff hanger! Oh, I am sooo evil! I'll most likely update tomorrow. Haha, thank you for reading, please leave a comment and tell me how much you hated this chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

Inuyasha's feet his the bottom of the well, and instantly his eyes went wide. His hand went up to clutch at his throat, his neck burning, as the all the breath fled from his body. He sank to his knees in pain as heat flared out from the mark on his neck, desperately gasping for air.

"Inuyasha?"

He heard Shippo's concerned voice, but all he could get out in reply was a strangled cry of pain.

"Inuyasha? Guys, something's wrong with Inuyasha!"

He tried to breath again, and found he couldn't. His lungs were burning, the pain in the mark on his neck reaching an unbearable peak. He crawled forward and sunk his claws high into the side of the well, pulling himself up and starting his climb out.

Sango and Miroku's heads popped up over the well, both staring down at him in concern. "Inuyasha, what is it?" His face had a similar expression to the one he wore when he was gravely injured in battled and close to death. That was scary; because it took a _lot_ to get him there.

He said nothing, just gasped for air as he grabbed the top of the well and slumped out. One hand went to his throat as he tried to pull in another breath, a tortured gasping noise all that he produced.

"Inuyasha!" Sango and Miroku both ran to him, helping him to stand. "What happened? What's wrong?" They worried over him, looking for a wound, and finding none.

Inuyasha weakly pushed them both back and staggered back up and over the lips of the well, disappearing down it.

Miroku and Sango looked at each other with worry evident in their eyes.

"What was that?" Sango asked, not really expecting an answer.

On the other side of the well Inuyasha's feet touched the ground, and for a second all he could do was gasp for air as it was finally allowed to return to his lungs. The pain faded to a dull ache and his mark stopped burning.

As soon as he could stand again he was off and running, heading for the house. Just as he'd landed in the well again he heard Kagome's blood curling scream abruptly cut off. Even from so far away he could smell her tears.

He was in her kitchen faster than he knew he could run, stopping for a second to stare at his broken Kagome lying on the floor. Her family was worrying around her in a panic, not sure what to do know that her screaming had stopped.

Inuyasha, without a word, stepped forward and scooped her trembling body up in his arms. As soon as his skin made contact with her own the pained shaking stopped and she let out a deep breath.

Her family watched with wide eyes as Kagome's whole body relaxed, the girl shifting in his arms to hold onto his neck and burrow her head into his chest. She rested her ear above his heart, listening to it's strong and comforting beating.

"I'm sorry Kagome." Inuyasha whispered. He looked up at her family, taking in another breath of precocious air. "I'm taking Kagome home. Did she eat?"

Mrs. Higurashi shook her head. "No, not yet."  
"Give me her food. I'll make sure she eats it when we get back."  
Kagome's mother nodded and ran over to the table, grabbing some type of flat bread thing, and then she put it in a plastic bag and presented it to Inuyasha. Inuyasha looked down at Souta, who had large fearful eyes, and grunted. "Go get her bag, runt."  
The boy nodded and took off running for his sister's room.

Inuyasha looked over at the old man, and dipped his head a little, not knowing of anything he could do. The man nodded back, and then took a seat at the table. "Will she be alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine now." Kagome said from her position in Inuyasha's arms. "Inuyasha made the pain stop."  
Inuyasha smiled grimly. "I'll protect her." he promised, then turned as he heard Kagome's brother hurry down the stairs. He accepted the bag fom the boy and managed to sling it over his shoulder by shifting Kagome in his arms for a second. After putting Kagome's food in the bag he smiled a little at the family, trying to be nice for Kagome's sake.

Mrs. Higurashi smiled back widely, breaking through the tense atmosphere. "We know she'll be alright with you." The mother said kindly. "Go save the world, you two. Be back before too long, okay?"

Amazed at her faith in him Inuyasha nodded at the women.

Kagome smiled and looked back at her family. "I'm alright now, really. It doesn't hurt at all, I promise."

All finally easing up, a few smiles were shared. After saying their goodbyes to the family Kagome and Inuyasha left, heading for the well.

Once they were out of the house Kagome, still in Inuyasha's arms, looked up at him. "Did you feel it, too?" She asked quietly.

He nodded. "I couldn't breath." He admitted. "What about you?"

"My heart felt like it was being squeezed. It was on fire, it hurt so bad. The mark on my chest was burning me." She said, not really sounding scared.

He nodded. "The mark on my neck burned, too."

She nervously and chuckled. "Well... I guess we won't be jumping off through the well on our own now, huh?" She asked.

Inuyasha _did_ grin at that. "You got that right, bitch. And that means you can't leave without my permission." He said, starting to sound like the old Inuyasha again.

Kagome laughed a little. "It works two ways, Inuyasha."  
"Nope!" He said, coming into the well house. "I can always drag you here. You can use subduing spell on me, but that only makes me stay. You couldn't get me to actually move even if you had Miroku and Sango helping." He said, starting to really smile.

He jumped down into the well, now really smirking, looking down at her dry glare with a slight laugh.

As soon as the appeared on the other side Inuyasha jumped up out of the well, letting Kagome out of his arms right as Shippo came flying at her.

"Kagome!" He cried as he gripped her shirt. "I was so scared! I though something happened to you on your side because Inuyasha-"  
"Hey!" Inuyasha yelled at him, worried about the injuries Kagome had received the night she was kidnapped. "Be careful, she's still healing!"

"Healing?"

Whatever he had been about to say in reply was cut off as a very confused monk and taiji stepped up. "Are you sure you're alright, Inuyasha?" Sango asked. "You looked pretty bad earlier."

"Keh, I'm fine." He ground out. He pushed Kagome towards her, gently. "Now go take Kagome to the hotsprings."  
"Huh?"

Thinking quickly, he made up a half-truth. "I want you to make sure her injuries are healed."  
"Injuries?" Sango asked, slightly alarmed.

"She'll explain when you're there." He grunted. Seeing Miroku's lecherous grin he added, "Miroku and I will head back to the old hag's. I'll catch him up there." He held out Kagome's bag for Sango to take; which she did, and then grabbed Miroku's arm and roughly started pulling him towards the village.

The girls headed off a different way, towards the hot springs, with Shippo with them. That is, until Inuyasha saw. "Hey, runt, you're coming with us."  
"What? But I always go with Kagome!" He protested.

Kagome smiled sweetly at him, and for once went along with what Inuyasha had to say. "Listen to Inuyasha, Shippo."  
"W-what?" He did a double take, obviously shocked. "But Kagome-"  
"You heard her kid." Inuyasha said with a slight grin. "Now get your furry ass over here."  
"Whaaa! Kagome, please, let me come with you!"  
Really not wanting to get into a fight Inuyasha used a different aproach. "Shippo, you're too old to bathe with the girls." He said.

"I am?" The kit stopped hie wailing for a second, looking at Inuyasha in confusion.

Wanting to help his friend out, Miroku played along, though he had no clue why Inuyasha was suddenly protesting to the young fox youkai traveling to the hot springs with the girls. "Yes, young Shippo. It is time you move on past childhood and bathe with the men. As tempting as it may be to stay amongst the lovely young women when-"

Inuyasha hit him on the back of the head, ending the speech before it could get out off hand. "Come on." he said, nodding at Shippo. "Let those two have their girl time."  
Shippo looked up at Kagome, whom smiled and nodded, and then also grinned. "Okay!" He hopped off her shoulder and ran after Mirkou and Inuyasha, puffing out his chest in pride.

Sango and Kagome giggled, then went on their way.

Once Sango was sure that they were way out of hearing range for even Inuyasha she turned to Kagome. "What was all that about?" She asked.

"Huh? Oh, with Shippo? I don't really know." She said with a shrug. They then came to the banks of the hotspring, and started to undress.

"Not just with Shippo. I know Inuyasha doesn't just want me checking wounds- which you'll have to tell me how you got in a minute. Why did he want you to come down to the hot springs with me?"

A small splash was made and Sango looked over her shoulder to see Kagome had jumped into the water. The miko from the future sighed. "Mmm, this feels like heaven." She mumbled.

Sango walked in, slowly sinking down in the water, looking up at the sky. "It does feel nice." She admitted. "Now tell me, why-" She turned her head and out of the corner of her eye caught something above Kagome's right breast. Turning she glanced at it again in confusion. _Is that... _"Kagome, what's that on your chest?" Sango asked.

"Oh this?" Kagome pointed at it with a slight frown. "Oh, it's why Inuyasha wanted us to get away from Miroku. He said for me to ask you about it. I think his youkai put it there-"  
Sango gasped, really looking at it now. "That... that mark..."  
Kagome lifted her hair and turned. "I have another one, too." She said, pointing at it. Seemingly unconcerned she turned to Sango. "So what is it, anyway?"

"Kagome... that's-" She swallowed a little bit. "-Inuyasha's mark."  
Kagome frowned. "I know that. I mean what _is _it?"

"It's... well, Kagome, um, it's a..." She took in a breath, and decided to just spit it out. "That's a mate's mark."  
"Mate's mark?"

She nodded. "You... you are Inuyasha's mate." She said, paling a little. With this everything in their little group was going to be so much more complicated.

"His mate?" She asked in confusion. "What does that even mean?" A sudden memory resurfaced in her head at the words, and she paled. _And wolf youkai mate for life._ Did this mean...

"In human standards," Sango said, pinching the bridge of her nose in anxiety. "You and Inuyasha are promised to be married."  
She blushed. "R-really?"

"It's a little deeper than that, Kagome. Youkai mates run deeper than even marriage. Really, if I was to even try to put it in human standards, I would suppose you two _are_ married already."

"We are?" She asked faintly, looking down at the mark.

Sango nodded and sighed. "And there is nothing you can do to break it ether. You get marked you're together for the rest of your lives. Well, Inuyasha is. Since you're a human, technically I guess you could leave him for another human. But you can never get rid of those marks, Kagome, and if you were to leave Inuyasha he would be alone for the rest of his life. Really, though, I wouldn't even try it. I can't think of an instant were a youkai mate has tried to leave it's partner. But I have a feeling that it would be extremely painful on the both of you." At those words, understanding suddenly flashed in Sango's eyes. "That's why he looked like that when he crossed the well this morning!"

Kagome nodded. "It hurt really badly when he crossed over without me." She said.

"Well then you know what it would be like if you tried to start another relationship-" Sango began.  
"No, I won't ever leave him." Kagome said firmly. "You know I love Inuyasha, Sango. I could never leave him..."

A fair smile lit Sango's face as she reached back to the banks and grabbed some of Kagome's modern shampoo. "Good. Because you're tied pretty tightly to him now."  
"Tell me more about it." Kagome said, also grabbing some shampoo. "About this whole mate thing."  
Sango shrugged her shoulders. "The truth is Kagome, I don't know that much about it. I was taught how to kill demons, not so much about their lifestyles. I was taught that coming between a two mates was about one of the most dangerous things I could do, though." She said, smiling. "And really, it's different for all youkai. Not to mention that Inuyasha is hanyou. That makes it even more complicated."

Kagome nodded. "That's okay, Sango. Can you give me the basics, though?"

Sango nodded. "Well, for now you are only marked. You're not full-fledged mate until..." She blushed. "You know..."  
Kagome blushed as well. "Oh."  
Sango nodded. "I know that you will be better understanding towards each others emotions now. And you will probably be more drawn toward each other now. Other wise... I don't know much anything else."  
Kagome nodded, and rinsed the soap from her hair. "That's still a lot more than I knew." She said with a smile. "So.. thank you Sango."  
Sango chuckled and watched as the miko put conditioner in her hair. "I must admit, Kagome, you're taking this rather well."

Kageom smirked. "Oh, trust me Sango, I'm planing my revenge on Inuyasha right now."

Sango cringed. "Ah.. I suppose you're going to sit him?"

"Nope." Kagome said, an evil light coming into her eyes. "I have something better planned."  
_Kagome sure can be scary..._ Sango thought. "O-oh. Well, please, do not be too harsh on him, Kagome. He was in his demon form, so I doubt her really knew-"  
"Oh, no. It was still him. And he remembered, too." She rinsed the conditioner from her hair. "Nope, he knew. And that's not what's bothering me. It's that he didn't tell me right after that makes me angry. Plus, I guess I would have liked to be asked. And really, he could have waited. Just to think, I was given these marks in the basement of an old warehouse right after I was kidnapped. Not exactly the most romantic spot."  
Sango giggled. "Oh, but Kagome, it _is _Inuyasha. I must admit I'm not surprised."  
Kagome laughed at that. "I guess it's really not surprising." She consented.

"Now, tell me what happened in your time. Why did Inuyasha's demon even come out?"

With a sigh, Kagome launched into the lengthy explaination, the whole time still hardly believing it. _I'm... I'm only sixteen! And I'm practically _married_? To Inuyasha? Oh, my friends are _not _going to believe this._

_.  
_

__Sorry it's so short, but I felt bad about the last chapter being a cliffy so I had to hurry up and update as fast as I could. XD Hope it's not too terrible! Thanks, and feel free to leave a comment, you all know how much I like them!


	9. Chapter 9

Art created by the ever wonderful Bernice Gordon. (tarkheki on devaintart.)

_._

Shippo couldn't really understand why he was no longer allowed to bathe with the girls. He kept turning the conversation-fight in his head, and every time he drew a big red question mark in his mind. While Inuyasha had said no more bathing with the _girls_ it seemed more like he was trying to say no more bathing with _Kagome_. Also on his mind was the smell both Inuyasha and Kagome carried. While the two always smelt like each other, and right now the scent they each carried of each other just on the skin was thick, it seemed like their actually scents were a little mixed up now. Kagome usually smelled kind of girly; like cherry bosoms and vanilla. Inuyasha usually smelled, well, like a man; an musky-earth smell and like the goshinbuko tree he had spent so long pinned to. Now the two smelt different. Kagome still smelled like Kagome and all, but her usual cherry blossom and vanilla smell now had an earthy tint to it, just like Inuyasha's smell now had a tint of the cherry blossoms in a way. It was like their individual smells had combined.

On top of that, while Shippo sure wasn't going to say anything, Inuyasha wasn't being as distant to Kagome as he usually was. He had noticed the way the two had centered around each other just while standing by the well. Which was just weird, because even though they did that a lot, usually the two didn't agree on anything while doing it. It was like they could only allow one form of affection at a time. But this time Kagome had easily agreed with everything Inuyasha had to say.

Too weird.

Something had to have happened. Not only did the two smell like each other more strongly than really they ever had, and got along, but Inuyasha didn't want him to bathe with Kagome which meant...

_There must be something on her body Inuyasha doesn't want me to see!_ The kitsune realized. Hitting an open palm with his little fist he set his face in determination. _I will find out what happened!_

~o0o~

"So, Inuyasha, did you and the lovely miss Kagome enjoy your time alone together?" Miroku smiled innocently, like he wasn't implying anything perverted.

"Keh." Inuyasha looked away from the lecher to stare at the door, straining his hearing for any sound of Kagome coming back. Having her out of his range of smell and hearing was making him anxious.

Miroku was a bit surprised that was all Inuyasha had to say. Usually it was something like, "Shut up, perv." and a solid bop on the head. The hanyou looked distracted. Miroku smiled. "Missing her already, Inuyasha?"

This time Inuyasha sharply turned his head to glare at the monk. "Shut it." He growled.

Deciding that Inuyasha was in a bad mood Miroku sat back and closed his mouth, not wanting any bodily harm to befall him until Sango returned. When she was around his pain always came with the reward of caressing her sweet-

"They're back." The hanyou said, jumping up to go out side of Keade's hut.

Miroku stared after the hanyou in confusion. Inuyasha had told him about Kagome getting kidnapped in her time, but had it really shaken him so much that he was so eager to see the miko.

Inuyasha rushed out of the hut and to Kagome's side, taking her pack from her without a word. He looked down at her, trying to read her emotions, and then lightly bumped her hand with his own. He saw that she was happy, which confused him a little. Hadn't Sango explained the marks to Kagome? Wasn't she angry with him?

Sensing his confusion through their contact Kagome pushed up a sense of reassurance through their link. She felt him calm down, and then he was also pretty happy.

"Kagome, I trust you are in good health?" Miroku asked from the doorway.

In confusion Kagome answered him. "Yeah."

Miroku nodded, and then looked like he was thinking hard.

Kagome looked at Inuyasha in question, and he shrugged, letting her he didn't know what was up with the question either.

Sango hurried to walk up beside Inuyasha, and then looked at him and whispered, "I'm happy for you two." She said it in a small voice, a smile accompanying it, and quiet enough for only him to hear.

He blushed slightly, but nodded.

"Kagome?" Shippo came out of the hut, looking puzzled.

"What is is Shippo?" She asked, gracing the boy with a small smile.

"Why is yours and Inuyasha's scents mixed up so bad?"

For a second no one said anything, and then Miroku burst out laughing. He at first bent at the knees and laughed as he held onto his stomach, then ended up crouched on the ground, and then finally he was laying on the floor trying to breath through his laughter.

"Are you done, monk?" Iunyasha asked, holding up a clenched fist.

The houshi held up his index finger finger, still laughing, and then tried to stop. It took a couple minutes for him to stop laughing, and by that time Sango had started to lightly laugh. Upon hearing her laugh, Miroku started laughing again, and that made Sango laugh harder, and so on until both were on the ground laughing while holding their stomachs and crying.

Inuyasha and Kagome grew more and more red as deep blushes blazed across their faces. "It wasn't that funny." Kagome meekly protested, trying not to be even more embarrassed than she already was.

Shippo stood were he was in confusion, not really getting it.

Finally stopping their laughter Sango and Miroku stood, brushing them selves off and trying to look like noting had happened.

Miroku, now fully composed, put on a perverted grin. "I see you two _did_ enjoy the time alone. Well-"

The monk crumbled to the ground as Inuyasha hit him over the head. "Shut up, monk!"

Kagome, still blushing, approached a very confused Shippo. "Well, Shippo, you see-"

"When a man and a women love each other very much-" Miroku started from the ground, only to have his stomach stomped on by a pissed off hanyou.

"Keh! Nothing like that happened, ya damned lecher!"

Kagome shot the two a glare, and then turned back to Shippo. "Inuyasha cleaned up my wounds, and then I was wearing his clothes. So we must smell like each other because of that."  
The kit shook his head. "No, Kagome, the smell is stronger than that."

"Uh..."  
Inuyasha stepped forward then. "I marked her, runt." He said easily, surprising the whole group.

For a second no one said anything.

Until Miroku started to laugh again.

Kagome blushed a deep, deep red and bit her lip. She was uncomfortable and embarrassed, and if Miroku didn't stop laughing all of the villagers were going to come and ask what was up with the group. And then someone would blurt out the answer, and by nightfall everyone in the village would have heard some weird version of the story.

Inuyasha noted her feelings and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Can we get going, monk? We have jewel shards to find."

Miroku finally stood, and wiped his eyes. "Ah, yes, my dearest friend. We can depart any time-"  
"We're leaving now."

"B-but, Inuyasha! We have yet to eat this morning-" Miroku started to splutter.

"Keh, not my problem." He reached into Kagome's backpack and handed Kagome a bag with her breakfast in it. "Eat."

"Thank you, Inuyasha, but shouldn't we wait until the others have eaten to leave?"

"Actually," Sango said. "I've already eaten."

"Me too!" Shippo added.

"Then it's settled. We're going." Inuyasha decided.

"But-"

"Hurry up, Miroku, or we'll leave ya' behind."

He sighed. "You are all so cold to me."

_Meanwhile, from the shadows..._

"Are you sure that's the one, brother?"

Two pairs of eyes were looking down at a rag-tag team of shard hunters, skeptically taking each one in. There was a hanyou with a stick for a sword, an infant youkai, a small cat youkai that could easily be squashed under foot, a monk with a problem regarding a female demon slayer's behind, the weak target that was the female, and then a priestess with a tiny kimono who looked like no more of a problem than any other girl.

"Oh, yes, little brother." A cruel smirk revealed teeth sharp as razors. "That's the one."

.

It's been a whole month! I can not believe I just left my poor story like that. *sigh* Anywho, I'm back, and I'm not dead! I hope you enjoy this chapter, even though it's so late... yeah. Oh, and as always, I love your comments with the very pits of my heart. So leave another one if you want to, because I love those things!


	10. Chapter 10

Inuyasha tried to be patent, he really did. He even went so far as to count to ten. Yeah, Kagome had once told him counting to ten would calm him down. That, of course, was fucking ridiculous. He count count to 100,000,000 and he would still be pissed as hell.

_Slap!_ "Pervert!"

"Waaaaa! Kagome, I'm hungry!"  
"Lovely Sango, you know I meant no-"  
"Don't even come close to me, monk!"

"Shippo, I'm sorry, but I don't have anymore ninja food in my bag."

"Waaaaaa! I'm so hungry, though! Waaaaa! Kagome!"

"Shippo, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to wait."

"Waaaaaaaaaaa!"

_Slap! _"I _said_ don't touch me!"

"Dearest Sango, you misunderstand my intentions."

"INTENTIONS?!"

"WAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Shippo, please calm down."

"Sango, I, uh-"

"_WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA!"_

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "ALL OF YOU SHUT UP!" He roared, turning back to the group. They all froze in various positions, staring at him. Miroku looked up at him from under Sango's foot, Sango looked up at him from underneath the Hirikotsu she held above her head, Kagome looked at him from where she was stooped over her bag, and Shippo looked up at him through his tears where he sat on Kagome's shoulder.

Kagome was the first to un-freaze and react. "Sorry, Inuysha. We must have been hard on your ears." She said, looking genuinely sorry. She reached out a hand and grabbed his own, reading into his emotions without realizing it and putting forth her own feelings of calm.  
He took in a deep breath, and ignoring the now surprised stares of their other friends, nodded. "It's okay, I guess. We shoulda stopped by now anyway."

Now everyone was _really_ staring.

Inuyasha turned his head and sniffed, happy to find that there was a small stream with fresh water not too far away. He pointed a clawed finger in the general direction. "We'll set up camp over there." He turned to the rest of the group, still frozen, and said; "You guys go and set up camp near the river up ahead.. I'll be back in a minute or two with diner."

"Wait," Miroku said, standing. "You are not going to make us keep going? The sun is still barely up."

He sent a glare at Miroku. "Don't push it, Monk."

Miroku smiled. "Well, I'm not going to complain." He said happily, putting an arm around each girl's shoulders.

Sango rolled her eyes upon contact, but as soon as Miroku put on arm on Kagome's neck the girl let out a little noise of pain and crumbled to the ground.

"Kagome!" Four worried voices said, coming around Kagome in a circle.

"Lady Kagome, are you alright?" Miroku asked, putting a hand on the base of her neck.

Kagome let out a shriek, and Inuyasha turned and let out a feral snarl in Miroku's face. The hoishi, startled, back off. As soon as his contact with Kagome ceased Inuyasha stopped growling and scooped Kagome up in his arms.

Instantly the two felt better.

Everyone was staring in distress. "Wha... what just happened?" Sango asked.

"I am truly sorry if I harmed you, Kagome. I had no idea that you were injured..." Miroku said, alarmed.

"It's okay, Miroku." Kagome said from her place in Inuyasha's arms.

Inuyasha said nothing, but Kagome could feel his own anger and guilt swirling around in the air around them. For the time being she said nothing, planning on counseling him in private later on.

"I think I'm going to take Kagome with me." Inuyasha finally said, his eyes hidden by his bangs.

Shippo looked like he was going to protest, by Sango sent him a look that told him to hold his tongue. She stepped forward, taking Kagome's bag off the ground. "Alright, Inuyasha. We'll head back and set up camp. Shippo and I will go look for fish in the stream."

He nodded, and then moved Kagome to his back. Kagome was already feeling fine once again. "See you all in a couple minutes." She said happily.

Everyone nodded. "Bye Kagome!" Shippo said, the last couple minutes already out of mind.

"Bye Shippo." She said, giving him a little wave.

Inuyasha hooked his hands under Kagome's thighs and jumped up in the air after she said goodbye to her kit. He ran for a while, in the opposite direction of their friends. He actually forgot all about what he was doing, and simply ran. Kagome didn't say anything, not even commenting when they were almost a mile and a half away from the rest of the group.

Suddenly, though, she spoke up. Rather loudly. Right in his ear.

"INUYASHA!"

"Gaaah!" He screatched to a halt, and turned to glare at her over his shoulder. "What the hell was that for, wench?!"

"Don't yell at me! I was just trying to tell you-"

"Don't yell at _you_?! You're the one who just screamed right in my ear!"

"Well sorry! I was only trying to say-"

"Sorry?! Sorry isn't going to make me less def now that you've-"

"Inuyasha! Just-"

"And now you're screaming again!"

"If you would just listen to me, I'm-"

"How can I not listen when you're screeching like a monkey demon?!"

"Did you just compare me to a _monkey_ demon?"

"It was the only thing _close_ to the scream you make."

"Well _excuse _me. I was trying to tell you-"

"You know what, Kagome? Maybe next time-"

"Inuyasha, just Shut UP!" She yelled again. "I'm _trying _to tell you that I sense a jewel shard!"

His ears perked up. "Jewel shards?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you! Two of them, up ahead."

"Well then why didn't you say so?!"

"Just go already."

With a slight growl he pushed up off of the ground and ran in the direction she had pointed. It didn't take long for the two of them to find the demon who possessed the shards. It was, ironically, a monkey demon. A ten foot tall monkey youkai who's mother might have been an ape.

Instantly Inuyasha set Kagome down behind him and pulled out the tetsiga. "Stay behind me."

She nodded, touching his hand to let him know through their link she was obeying. Knowing she was a good distance away from where the inevitable battle was to take place, Inuyasha asked her one last thing before charging head in.

"Where is the shard?"

"He had two," She answered. "One in it's forehead and the other in the tip of the tail."

He nodded, and then took a step forward to face the youkai whom had yet to take notice of the hanyou and the miko.

"Hey, ugly!" Inuyasha yelled.

The thing turned it's grotesquely large head to glare at Inuyasha.

"Time to die!" Inuyasha jumped forward, his sword held high above his head. This would be an easy battle- over in seconds. He swung down his blad to his the thing's head, but it jumped out of the way suddenly. "Nani?"

Inuyasha looked over his shoulder just in time to get a full-fledged blast of monkey scream right in the fare.

He winced, lowering his ears and stepping back a step. Yeah, Kagome had nothing on this thing.

Just as he took a step back the youkai's tail shot out, where there should have been the soft tip of it's tail there was actually several spikes, and tore right through Inuyasha's stomach.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome screamed. She started to run to him, but he stopped her.

"Stay back!" He growled, trembling as he used his sword to help him stand. He spit blood out on the ground, and glared up at the demon that was baring it's ugly yellow fangs at him. "Bastard." He growled. He stood, and swinging his sword down in an arch released a deadly attack. "Wind scar!"

The youkai disintegrated with one final howl, leaving only two shards in his wake.

The foul beast gone, Kagome ran over to Inuyasha. "Inuyasha!" He was barely standing, pissed as hell, and in a lot of pain.

"Get the shards." He grunted.

She stopped, nodded firmly, and quickly collected the two pink fragments. She purified them and added them to the bottle around her neck, then hurried back over to where her hanyou stood.

"Inuyasha... we need to get you treated. Sango has my bag-"

"Keh, these are nothing but scratches, I'm fine."

"Lair." She snapped. "We have to find somewhere to spend the night so you can heal. I _know_ we can't get back to the others with you in this condition."

"Feh, damn monkey. I can't believe it managed to wound me. Pathetic."

"It was pretty fast... I didn't even see it move before it was behind you."

"Keh."

"Well, come on." she pulled one of his arms up and over on to her neck, supporting some of his weight. He pulled his sword from the ground and put it back at its place by his hip, and then started walking. They walked for a good ten minutes before Inuyasha started sniffing. Suddenly he spoke. "I've been here before." He said. "There's a cave up ahead."

She nodded, picking up the pace, and trying not to show how worried about Inuyasha she was. He was soaked in blood, and she could actually see behind him through the hole in his abdomen. His face was pale, and she could tell if he didn't get to sit down soon he was going to pass out cold.

Finally they came to the cave he had spoke of, which remarkably had a small hot spring inside. Along with the spring their was a pile of dust-covered furs in a corner, and before it a small fire pit. Their were a couple bones beside that, but otherwise the place looked pretty comfortable.

"I left this stuff here back before..." _Back before I was pinned to a tree._

She nodded, getting his silent message somehow. She helped him over to the pile of pelts, which she quickly dusted off. By the time she was done and had turned around she found he had already lay down on the floor.

Seeing her questioning look he said, "I don't wanna get those all bloody."

She nodded. She turned to him and pushed aside his fire rat robes, looking at his bare torso grimly. "I wish I had my medical supplies." She said.

"It's fine, I'll heal on my own."

She glared at him. "Baka, you need to be treated!" She grabbed his haori off the ground and looked at it, saw it was in fine condition except for a bit of blood, and then looked back at him. "Don't look."

"Huh?"

She threw his white under shirt over his head, and at the same time yanked her top off and put his own on herself. By the time he had the cloth off of his head she had already re-clothed herself. "You know, you could have just told me you were changing."  
she shrugged and got to work ripping her uniform into shreds. _Gee, I have been going through these things like crazy. The school is probably wondering how I manage to ruin my uniform so easily... in fact, why do I even wear these things here? I should start wearing clothes more suited to hiking around Feudal Japan... _

She quickly cleaned Inuyasha up and bound his wounds, having become an expert at it by this point in time. When she was done she helped him over to the bed of animal pelts and then used some left over wood and flint to start a fire.

Once she had it going, she turned to Inuyasha.

She saw him picking at the makeshift bandages, and growled. Yet another bad habit she had picked up from him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Wow, I never knew you could speak Inuyoukai. Or that you could cuss."

.

Sorry, had to stop there. :) I'll probably update by tomorrow. That is... *switches to mafia voice*If you manage to persuade me. lol, just kidding. Really though, a couple reviews would be nice... pretty please?


	11. Chapter 11

I think it's about time for... dun dun dun... the disclaimer! So, eh hem. I do not own Inuyasha. Happy now? Anywho, on with the story!

.

He raised an eyebrow. "Wow, I never knew you could speak Inuyoukai. Or that you could cuss."

"Huh?"

He grinned. "You just told me to 'stop fucking moving'."  
"I... I did?"

His grin grew broader. "Looks like ya' have been picking some Inuyoukai up from me without realizing it."

"Inuyoukai have their own language?"

"Yeah, though not all of it is... verbal I guess. Like, you have a bunch of moves ya' do, too."

"Can you show me?"

"Huh?" He blinked. "You want to learn Inuyoukai?"

She nodded excitedly. "Please?"

He smiled again, happy to see her taking an interest. It was also nice to know more than she did on a subject. "Okay. What do you want to learn?"

"Show me how to say your name."

"Oh... well, we don't really use names."  
"You don't?"

"No. More like positions."

"Positions?"

"Yeah. I guess I could teach you those, if you really want to learn."

She nodded eagerly.

"Okay, well I'm alpha, I guess, so I would be this." He growled low in the back of his throat.

She mimicked him.

"A little deeper."  
She tried again, and this time got it spot on."  
"Yeah, that's right."

"What am I?" She asked.

"You're beta." He growled again, then added a slight bark on the end.

She did as he did, getting her own title right on the first try.

"Good job. That wasn't too bad, for a human."

"What about everyone else? What are they?"

"I guess Shippo would sorta be like your pup... so he would be this."

Again he showed her what to do, and she copied him. They went through all the 'names' of their 'pack' members, until Kagome could easily say any of them.

"What's this?" Kagome asked, growling in a way she often heard Inuyasha.

"Oh... well that pretty much translates into 'back of ass-hole."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course. What about this?" She did another one he often used around her.

He blushed a little this time.

"What is it?" She asked with a smile, really curios now. She often heard him use a combination of the first growl and then the one she had just used around Koga. She often wondered if he was actually saying anything, or if it was just to intimidate.

"That's..." He mumbled something that rhymed with blees crine.

"What?"

"That is... she's mine."

Kagome blushed a little bit, too, as a small smile played across her face. "Oh."

He just nodded, not really sure what to say from there.

"What about actions? You said it wasn't all verbal?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Show me."

He sat up a little, using the cave wall for support. "Come here."

She got up and walked over to him, sitting on her knees before his form.

"Alright, what do you want me to show you?"

"Hmm... how do you show that you're angry?"

He smirked. "That's a growl." he said, showing her one she heard a lot.

"Oh. Well... how about you don't like what someone is doing?"

"Come here." He patted the ground in between his legs. She moved up to sit there, and didn't protest when he picked her up and turned her around so that her back was to his front. "This is how you show you don't like what someone it doing." He opened his mouth and lightly bit down on her shoulder.

She nodded, blushing a little, and then suddenly asked, "What does it mean if you bite someone's chin?"

"Like this?" He turned her to face him and gently leaned forward to nip at her chin.

Still blushing she nodded a little.

"It depends. It can mean you want them to pay close attention to you, or it can mean you want the other person to know that you're the boss."

She nodded. "Okay." _That explains what he was doing when he went full-youkai._

"What about shut up?" She asked suddenly, smirking.

"Easy." He reached out and pinched her skin, right above her right hip bone.

"How do you show concern?"

He leaned forward and, starting at her shoulder, slowly licked a path up to her ear.

She blushed again, shuddering a little. "What about this?" She asked, copying a move she knew all dogs did. She licked his cheek.

He smirked. "It means 'I missed you' or 'I'm sorry' if you whine a little bit."

"How do you say it's okay?"

He leaned forward and nuzzled her cheek.

"What about your ears? Why do they always do things when you talk?"

"Huh?" He blushed. "So you noticed."

She nodded with a smile.

"Well, ears back and head down is submission. Bet you've never seen that one before."

She laughed a little. "Nope!"

"Ears back and head up, a little bit of fang, that's 'I'm gonna kick your ass.'"

She laughed again. "I've seen that one."

"Ears forward and down is usually just for you, wench."  
She smiled excitedly. "What does it mean?"

"It means it's too loud."

For a second she said nothing, but then she said, "How do you say 'that wasn't funny, it was stupid, and I don't like it'?"

He laughed, and then leaned forward and nipped her nose lightly.

She smiled, then leaned forward and nipped his own.

He laughed.

"How do you say goodbye?"

He stopped laughing. "Well, there's two ways. One was means you know you'll see each other again, and that it's okay that you're leaving. The other is more of a 'please come back'."

"Show me both."

First he leaned forward and rubbed his nose against her own, making her blush again. "That's the first one."  
"And the second?"

He swallowed, then carefully lifted a clawed hand and put it on her jaw. His tongue darted out and licked from the bottom of her chin to her mouth, and then he leaned back.

She was still blushing, but nodded. "Okay."

For a second all was silent. Then Kagome blushed and asked, "How do you say 'I love you'?"

He blushed, just as she did, but he filled out her request. He leaned forward, putting his hand at the base of her neck, and brought his lips to her own in a chaste kiss.

Her heart was thundering in her chest, but for a second she just allowed herself to feel. It was odd; that was the first time he had kissed her when he wasn't in his demon form.

He pulled back and licked her bottom lip, then let her go and leaned against the wall. Both still blushing heavily, they turned away from one another.

"That," Inuyasha said, still not looking at her. "Is 'I love you.'"

She nodded, and with a sudden burst of courage turned around. "Inuyasha?"

He turned to her, and just as he did, she moved forward and kissed his lips. His eyes widened for a second, before they closed and he moved his hand around to the back of her neck for a moment. She pulled back, and looked up into his eyes, searching for an answer there. With that low, 'she's mine' growl he leaned forward and kissed her again.

When he pulled back, he said; "It's late. We gotta long way to travel tomorrow. Sleep."

She nodded, and made to move away, but her quickly caught her by the waist and pinched her hip.

She looked over her shoulder, a little surprised, but he just moved down so that he was laying. He pulled up one of the biggest fur's from the pile, a bear's pelt, and motioned for her to get under it next to him.

With a small smile she crawled under the pelt and settled against his bare chest, mindful of his wounds. She yawned a little, just as his arm snaked under her head to be used as a pillow. Another arm went to her waist, and she grabbed his hand just like she had on the day that he had marked her.

"How do you say thank you?" She suddenly asked.

There was a bit of movement, and suddenly he kissed the hollow of her throat. He moved back to his original position, kissing the mark on her neck along the way.

She shuddered, smiling with a small blush. She turned around in his grip so that she was facing him, and lightly kissed his own throat. "Thank you." She whispered.  
He didn't answer, except to tighten his hold on her. "Go to sleep."  
She closed her eyes, obeying his command, and did.

.

"It's getting really late, Miroku. Do you think Kagome and Inuyasha are alright?"

"Of course, fairest Sango. I don't see the forest going up in flames, so they can't be in trouble. I bet they wanted to get in some more _alone_ time." His hand darted out with the word, squeezing Sango's behind.

She growled a little- they had all picked up a habit or two from Inuyasha- and slapped him.

"Oh, she made good contact on that one." Shippo said to Kirara, who meowed in agreement.

"Pervert." Sango muttered, looking out in the direction that she knew Inuyasha and Kagome would come from. "I hope they are okay..."

"It's okay, Sango." Shippo assured her. "Inuyasha won't let anything happen to Kagome. They'll be okay. … I hope."

Sango nodded, coming over to the kit where he snuggled into her fire cat's side. Sango curled up next to Kirara as well, giving Shippo a reassuring smile.

"You're right. We shouldn't worry. They'll be okay."

Miroku, recovered from his earlier slap, came over to Sango. He smiled at her, not caring that he only received a glare in return, and sat in front of her.

"If Inuysha protects Kagome, then it is only right that I should protect you, my lovely Sango."  
Sango actually blushed a little at that smiling. "Goodnight, Hioshi."

"Goodnight, Sango."

.

So... I actually followed through and updated! Hope you all liked it. :) Thank you for your wonderful reviews, I hope to see more. Because, as you all know, I pretty much go crazy for those things. Ah, nothing better than a comment on my writing to top off the morning. Thanks!


	12. Chapter 12

"Brother, please, can't we just take her now, while they're sleeping?" Whined a form in the shadows.

"Patience, little brother. Don't you see the way he's all curled up around her? We couldn't get her without waking him up. I want this to be a quick job, without a fight. We snatch the girl and go. Our plan went perfectly, the group has been seperated. I can't believe the hanyou actually killed our monkey youkai, though."

"Have you heard the things they say about this half-breed, brother? They say he can kill a thousand demons with one swipe of his sword! And that he possess the strength of ten average demons. They say-"

"This _they_ you speak of- is it a reliable source or is it all rumor?"

A small sigh, and then a defeated, "Rumor."

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear, little brother. Humans spin lies and urban fairy tails simply for their own entertainment. He's a half-demon, little brother. Half-demon, half power."

A nod. "You're right brother, forgive me for my foolishness."

"You are forgiven. Now, watch. They're stirring. We must wait for the perfect opportunity."

.

Kagome took in a deep breath of air, and let it out in a smile sigh as she awoke. She yawned a bit, and then snuggled closer to the warmth in front of her. She slowly opened her eyes, which were greeted by the lovely sight of her hanyou's bare chest. She smiled, knowing he was already awake since he was stroking her back with one of his hands. "Good morning." She said, yawning again.

"Why are you so cheery? Aren't you usually the one cursing the early morning hours?"

She smiled, and rested her head on the chest in front of her. "I slept well."

"You did? Well that's a first." He said jokingly, turning them both so that he was on his back and she was curled into his side with her head still resting on his chest right on top of the mark there.

"Shut up." She said with a smile, moving so that she could look at his face.

His hair was messy- when wasn't it- and his eyes still held traces of sleep in them, but other wise he looked as he always did. Pretty damn sexy.

_Did I really just think that?!_ Kagome thought with a slight blush.

"How is your wound?" She asked, maneuvering so that she was sitting up and looking at him.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "Keh. It's fine."

Not fully believing this Kagome reached out and, moving the pelt out of her way, looked at his bandages. They were soaked through with blood, but it was dry. "Can I look?"

"You never asked before."

She rolled her eyes this time. Kagome moved to sit on her knees at his side as he stretched out. She started un-doing his bandages carefully, one little strip at a time. When she had them all off the was happily greeted by a mostly healed wound. It was still bloody and open to the worlds towards the middle, but other wise it was fine but for a new scar. Even that scar would quickly fade away. She guessed in about an hour he would be good to go.

"Looks like we can leave in an hour." She said happily.

"An hour?! Why the hell can't we leave now?"

"You're not all the way healed yet. We should wait."  
"Feh. I'm hungry wench, and don't even think about pretending your not. I heard your stomach growling all night. Really, you would think there was a mangy wolf demon hanging around."

"First a monkey youkia, then a wolf." She muttered to herself, still looking at his injury to make sure it was alright and that she hadn't over looked anything. Seeing nothing of concern, she looked back up at him. "Well, dog boy," She said, reaching up to scratch behind his ears. "If you're so healed up then why don't you go get up some breakfast?"

"Mmm-hmm." He said, leaning into her hand as she scratched, not really listening.

She blinked in surprise. _I though he hated it when I touched his ears?_ "Do you like that?" She asked in surprise.

He nodded a little, closing his eyes and smiling as she continued to scratch.

"How about this?" she asked, moving up to scratch the base of his ear.

He growled happily.

_Hmmm..._ Before she knew what was happening Inuyasha had picked her up by the waist and plopped her down in his lap so that she was facing him. Her legs slid over ether side of his hips, straddling him, as she blushed a deep red.

He grabbed each wrist and moved her hands up to his ears.

_Well, I want to touch them anyway..._ She started scratching each ear, careful not to be too hard on them. She had to choke back a laugh when he started up that low growl in the base of his throat again.

"Now," She said, as she gently scratched the insides, "Are you going to go get us breakfast while I take a bath?"

"Uh-huh." He said, not really paying attention.

"Good!" And she hopped off his lap.

"Wait... what?" He opened his eyes and looked up at her, where she was kneeling in front of the hot spring, testing the water. "Kagome!" He growled, realizing what he had just agreed to.

She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. "Have fun!" She said with a big smile.

Grumbling to himself he got up, stalking over to her. "You better stay here. And don't get my clothes wet!"

She frowned at him. "I'm going to wash out the blood."  
"Fine. But still, you better not leave."

"I won't, I swear." She said, standing. She leaned up on her tip-toes and rubbed her nose against his, remembering what he had told her about his language that night.

He grinned broadly at that, and rubbed his nose on hers before giving her a quick peck on the lips. She blushed a pretty pink, lifting her hand up to her lip. She looked up, and he was gone.

She sighed, and then started undress. Her skirt was already filthy. It would be the first to get cleaned. In fact-

_Crack!_

Kaogme's head snapped to look at the mouth of the cave. "Inuyasha?"

No reply.

Shrugging it off, she turned back to the spring and dipped her feet in, sitting on the edge of it. She leaned forward, still in Inuyasha's haorai, and started to wash her skirt.

"Don't move."  
Kagome's eyes flew wide open as someone clamped a hand over her mouth. Her skirt fell from her hands and into the hot spring noiselessly.

"Don't try anything. If you even-"  
Having heard enough, Kagome jabbed her elbow into her attacker's gut as hard as she could, making them fall back for a second. "INUYASHA!" She screamed, getting up to run out of the cave.

Suddenly there was another pair of hands gagging her with a strip of rough fabric. She struggled out of their hands and tipped forward, falling into the hot spring with a huge splash.

Someone cursed behind her as she swam over to the other side of the spring, climbing out and yanking off her gag.

"INUYASHA!"

"Quiet, girl!" Two pairs of hands yanked her back and put her gag on again, then they tied her hands behind her back. She kicked at them, screaming into her gag, until one of them finally moved in front of her.

He had slitted eyes, like a cat's, and blue markings underlining them. His eyes were a bright green, his hair an sickly, oily black mass. His hand lashed out, slapping her across the face harshly.

"Let's go." He said to the man behind her, and then she was harshly grabbed and tucked under an arm as her attackers and her flew from the cave.

All she could seem to think was; _Not again..._

.

So, yes, it was a short chapter. It happens. Now is the part of the story were I grin, quite maniacally might I add, and demand a review by noon- else the update gets it.  
Just kidding, but really, I do love those reviews... I think that I might be addicted to them.

Thanks for reading!


	13. Chapter 13

(Just a warning, this chapter is a little... well, I don't know if it's T rated. I'm considering changing this fic to M rated, just to be safe. But don't worry- nothing is going to happen to Kagome. She'll be fine. Tell me if you think I should bump the rating up one, please. Thank you!)

.

"INUYASHA!"

Inuyasha's head snapped up, hearing his name being called.

"INUYASHA!"

"Kagome!" he dropped the animal he had been skinning, running back to their cave. "Kagome!"

_Damn, I leave her alone for what, two seconds!? Keh, she's gone before I can fucking blink!_

"Kagome!" But by the time he got to the cave, whatever had happened to her had already happened. There was water all over. It looked like someone- probably Kagome- had fallen into the hot spring, and then- dripping wet- crawled out on the other side. The wet object- again, probably Kagome- had then been dragged for a little ways and then carried out of the cave. Well, that's what it looked like.

Kagome's tiny green skee-ert thing was floating in the hot spring, but other wise there was no sign of her ever having been in the cave.

"Fuck! Not again, damn it!" Using his nose he sniffed around the cave, trying to find out where she had gone. She was sopping wet, her scent told him this much, and pissed off. A little scared, too.

But, oddly enough, he couldn't smell the ones responsible for her disappearance very well. There were two other scents in the cave, like there had been two other people there, but the smells were so faint it was almost like they had been left there weeks ago.

Still, Inuyasha wasted no time in sniffing out Kagome.

"I swear, whoever the hell they are, if they hurt one hair on Kagome's head..." He wasn't in her era anymore, so he didn't have to severely injure anymore. He could kill any bastard who dared lay a hand on Kagome.

"I haven't used Blades of Blood in a while..." It sounded like he had two volunteers for targets, though. You touch Kagome, you die. Simple and plain as day, just like Inuyasha liked it.

He followed her scent trail for a while, growling with every leap into a tree he took. Each time they went into the air it became that much harder to follow the trail. Luckily, Kagome had fallen into the hot spring before getting her ass kidnapped. So every drop of water that fell off her body had her scent on it. She was leaving a little trail of water for him to follow, without even knowing it.

Still... "This is fucking ridiculous! I'm never letting her out of my sight again!"

Suddenly the mark on his heart flared up in heat- not unpleasant, but not comfortable ether. He looked down at the mark, seeing it was glowing faintly. It wasn't hurting, though, so for now he would ignore it.

He stopped, sniffing, having lost her scent. He circled around, but couldn't find it. He chose a direction at random, finally, and started running that way.

The farther he ran the more the mark started to become annoying. It felt like he had a second pulse in the mark, and it kept beating harder and harder the farther he left.

Not finding her scent he growled, turned around, and went back to the place he had lost her scent.

He picked up from there and went a different way, noting that the pulsing was getting less and less, and finally he found her scent again.

_Wait a second..._ He looked down at the mark quickly, then back up in the way he was running. _Is this thing a Kagome detector or somethin?_

Just to test it out, he started to go in the wrong way on purpose. Sure enough, the pulsing started as soon as he was off course.

_For once in my life something is actually not backfiring on me! This rocks! It's like Kagome- a jewel detector. Except it doesn't whine... and I doubt it's gonna get kidnapped. _He shook his head, now back on the trail once again. _Am I really comparing a mark and Kagome? Feh, wench has me goin' crazy. Now all- FUCK!_

He came to a screeching halt, spinning his arms to help him stop, just before he propelled himself off a cliff. Sure enough, Kagome's scent led to the very edge of the cliff. Far, far, far below was a river, and far, far, far across was another cliff face. A ravine.

Her scent was completely panicked here, right before the drop off.

He started to feel panic bubbling up in his stomach. Had someone dropped Kagome off a cliff?! If they did, he was going to... going to... he was going to...

Finally ration kicked in, before thoughts of complete despair could take over. If she was dead, he would know. His mark would let him know. After all, if being on different sides of the well- 500 years apart- was so painful he knew he wouldn't be standing if death separated them he would be in so much pain.

So she had to be alright.

But... where the hell was she?!

As if on cue, a stale wind blew in his face, carrying the faint scent of Kagome, just as it did when ever he ran behind Kirara when she was riding.

Wait a second... whomever kidnapped her... maybe they could fly.

That had to be it! But in that case...

He looked over the ravine's edge and gulped.

… what the hell was he going to do?

~o0o~

When Kagome woke up she groaned. Her wrists were sore from rubbing against rope, her legs were sore, and she hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. On top of that her ribs hurt from being carried wrapped under someone's arms so long. And then... in their claws.

She shuddered, remembering the feeling of dangling thousands of feet in the air, held only by the huge talons of a flying youkai.

"_Drop her, brother." The man, the one with the green eyes, told the one who was holding her. _

"_Yes brother." She was let go of, hitting the ground hard. She glared at the oaf who had dropped her. He had orange under his brown eyes. Unlike his skinny brother, he was actually quite large, and had shaggy hair instead of oily. He also seemed to have a lot less brains and cunning. _

_Kagome watched in horror as the elder brother stretched out his arms, and slowly a thin coat of slime dripped down from each and started to form a membrane like that of a bat's wing. It was blue, like the marks under his eyes. Slowly the man- youkai- grew larger. His clothes magically disappeared into his body as he grew, his legs turning blue, along with the rest of his skin. When he was done with his transformation he was a huge pterodactyl like thing, blue with thick white talons and a gross mane of black hair. _

_Beside her the smaller brother had turned into... an alligator. How exactly did _that_ work out?_

_The older brother- she had nicknamed him Asshole for her own amusement- flew up and over her where she was tied up on the ground and scooped her up in giant bone like talons, his brother in the other set. Then they had flown across the ravine, Kagome terrified the whole way, and landed in a cavern she hadn't noticed in the opposite cliff face. Each brother turned back into their human-like forms, somehow still clothed, and they had harshly yanked her to her feet and into a cave._

"_Another cave?" She had mumbled to herself, the words coming out more of a 'Nunnuna Ame' through her gag. _

_Her captors had paid her no head, just marched her right inside. _

_She was shoved into a hole in the cave floor, and that was were she had hit her head and fallen unconscious for a moment. _

"So, brother, what should we do with her while we wait for our client?" She heard the older one ask.

"What do you mean Waru?" The younger brother asked.

"Ringu, I am the older brother. I am the only one who has the privilege of using our names."

"Yes, brother. Sorry Brother."

"Now," Waru said. "What should we do with her?"

"I am sorry, brother, but I still do not know what you mean." Ringu said.

"Our client just said to get the girl. He never said what condition she was to be in."  
Kagome's eyes went wide in horror. They couldn't mean...

"Oh, brother, she is only a human. You would kill her!"

Kagome felt like she was going to be sick.

"I know she is human, little brother. I would control myself. As long as she doesn't die."

"Well brother, it does make you happy. If you want to, please do."

"How about we both have some fun with her? Together?"

Kagome felt tears prick behind her eyes. She was sure she was going to vomit.

"Really brother?" Ringu asked excitedly.

"As long as I can have my fun for a little while first. Then we both can."

"Oh, thank you brother! I'm honored! When will we have such fun?"

"After diner, perhaps. I want to keep her in that hole until then incase her lap dog managed to sniff her out as far as the edge of the cliff. We don't want him smelling her. He'll search elsewhere by nightfall."

"Oh, you are so clever brother! So clever indeed!"

"Yes, I know. Now go prepare our meal. I want some sake with my dinner tonight."  
"Yes, brother."

Tears started to slip down her face, as she tried desperately to think of a way out. But none could come to mind.

_Please, Inuyasha... help me!_

.

Okay, I actually just really grossed myself out writing that. That was completely vulgar. Sorry, I would usually not write that sort of thing, but these are the bad guys... they have to be bad, you know? Sorry again.

Anyway, feel free to review. Hope I didn't scare anyone off- I probably won't do anything like that again. Sorry.


	14. Chapter 14

Hey, I'm back. I'm really sorry about the inconsistent updates. I've been getting about 6-7 hours of sleep every night in between taking care of kids and working and then getting up early. So, I've been using my free time to nap and finish writing the book my editor has been pushing me to get done. I finished book number 1, Brighter Than The Sun, so now I just have to wait until it's edited and then maybe I won't be so low on cash any more. How low on cash? I went out of my way to pick a dime up off the sidewalk today. That's how low. But again! I am so, so, so, so, so sorry about not updating for so long! I will not fail you in the future, dearest readers. Anyway, enough about my boring life! On with the story!

**Disclaimer: I own... well, I own this really nice hair tie. Inuyasha? Not so much...**

.

_Okay, it's pretty much done. I can't believe I didn't think of this before..._

Kagome was still sitting in the hole she had been thrown down, but she wasn't just sitting there anymore. No sir! She was determined to get out on her own just this once. But... if Inuyasha did come to rescue her before she escaped she wouldn't complain at all. Those guys were serous creeps...

In the hole Kagome was trapped in she had found a couple of rocks and sticks, as the rest of the cave had them scattered all about. She had used some sort of tiny vine like plants to tied a trangle-shaped rock to a stick, making an arrow. It was shaky, not strong, and really didn't even deserve to be called an arrow.

Then she had made another arrow, the tip more round than the last one, but a bit sturdier. She had two arrows, and no bow to speak of. She did, however, have a stretchy hair-tie on her wrist.

Kagome silently thanked Souta, where ever he might be, for getting her into a paper-wad war using rubber bands. Thanks to him, she knew how to shoot using a rubber band. The only problem was that she had never shot anything bigger than a quarter. An arrow? That would be tough, and she only had one shot for each of her captors.

"I can do this." She whispered to herself. "I can do this!"

Kagome was patent, waiting for her time to shine. And just when she was about to give up hope, it came.

"Listen, little brother."

Kagome listened hard hearing that, though she wasn't the one who's attention was called.

"I can smell that hanyou snooping around across the ravine. I'm going to follow him and make sure he doesn't come back. You will stay here and guard the prisoner. Got it?"

"Yes, brother. I will do as you say. Are you sure Mr. Naraku only wants us to get this girl, though?"

_So Naraku's behind this. Figures._

"Quiet, you imbecile!" The elder brother snarled. "Do not question me!"

"Y-yes brother."

She heard the elder brother transform, and then the loud sound of leathery wings flapping away.

It was time. "Oh, oh help me! Please, there's a snake!" She yelled just loud enough for the young- and gullible- brother to hear.

"What? A snake?"

"Yes, help! It will poison me!" She pulled the rubber band back with the arrow she had made, the sharp one, and pushed forward her spiritual powers.

"Really?" A face popped up over the hole, looking down in curiosity.

Kagome let the arrow fly, hitting the demon in the right cheek, though she had tried for the center of his forehead. She watched as the demon's eyes went wide, and then he turned to dust; purified. She leapt up, snatching onto the clothes he left behind and pulled herself up far enough to grab onto the edge of the hole before the clothes fell. With a grunt she pulled herself up and over the ledge, grabbing the arrow off the ground. She had her back-up safely tucked into the waistband of her skirt as back-up.

She waited by the cave entrance, aiming for exactly were the other villain would come in.

_Ha! For once, I don't need saving. I could get used to this..._

_._

Inuyasha came skidding into camp, instantly getting everyone's attention.

"It's Kagome, let's go!" He barked, knowing they needed no other explanation.

"Again?" Shippo and Miroku asked at the same time, both standing.

"Kirara!" Sango called her feline to her side, getting on the neko youkai, Miroku coming up right behind her.

"What about me?" Shippo cried.

"Stay and guard the camp!" Inuyasha yelled over his shoulder.

"Aw! But I want to help!"  
"STAY!" He snarled again, not having time for dealing with Shippo.

_Hold on Kagome. We're coming..._

.

Kagome didn't have to wait too terribly long for her last captor to come back to the cave. She waited as he changed back into a human form outside the cave, and then came strolling inside.

"Brother, the hanyou is on his way!" The youkai yelled.

"Hit the mark." Kagome let the arrow sail, but it only hit his right shoulder, blowing the flesh apart.

"ARGH!" The youkia turned, eyes aflame. "Girl!" He lunged at her, but before he could grab her Kagome notched another arrow and shot it, landing it in the center of his face.

And then it was over.

For a moment Kagome just stood there, shocked.

"I... I did it?" A huge smile broke out on her face. "I did it!" She cheered, jumping up and down. She happily waltzed over to the entrance of the cave, where she happily sat.

"Kagome!"

She looked up across the ravine and saw her friends on their way. She smiled merrily and waved. "Hi guys!"

.

So, I know it ended suddenly. Sorry? I don't know... anyway, this story sort of died out, but I'm ringing a cute fluff story out of it for a sequel, which is actually so far much better written than this story. Sorry to be such a disappointment. :P


	15. Chapter 15

**Important-**ish: Okay, so my friend has noticed I'm back on here. Said friend is telling me it is a waste of my time and that I really shouldn't be on here. Instead, she wants e to get on figment... yeah. So I told her I like it on here much better, and she said that she bet it was still a waste of my time. SO we struck a bet. She bet me that I couldn't get 100 reviews over the course of three days. And I, well, I was being stupid and told her I could. And so... well, um, if everyone could leave a review... I would be forever grateful! Thanks everyone, sorry again.

(END OF STORY- for real this time.)

The group was sleeping peacefully around the campfire, their bellies full, and pleasant moods still hanging in the air. The fire crackled merrily, small embers floating up into the dark sky.

Oh, and when you read, "The group was sleeping peacefully" that really translates into "The males of the group were sleeping peacefully."

Kagome and Sango were just a small walk away, talking in hushed voices.

Kagome was smiling mischievously, and Sango was biting her lips as she tried to fight off her own smile.

She was serous when she told Sango she was going to get revenge on Inuyasha for mating her like he had, even though she wasn't really angry.

"And it will do nothing to actually harm them, Kagome-chan?"

The miko nodded at her friend, getting what she needed from the bag. "It won't hurt them, don't worry."

The demon slayer smiled wider. "Then might I borrow that to use on the houshi?"

"Miroku?" Kagome asked in surprise. "Why would you…" Scenes of the lecherous monk grabbing Sango's rear end flashed in the young miko's mind. "Oh. Yeah, here."

Slowly the girls crept back into camp, each holding an object meant to bring revenge. Kagome tip-toed over to where Inuyasha sat propped against the trunk of a tree, fast asleep. Pushing thoughts of deep sleep slowly towards him, she moved forwards slowly. After poking his cheek lightly to make sure he would not wake she got to work.

Sango did the same, though she was not able to push thoughts of sleep to the man she was creeping towards, she was a ninja.

When the girls were finished the silently hid the evidence, and then crept back into bed as they smothered their giggles.

~o0o~

Kagome's eyes sprang open when she heard a loud childish laugh ring out. The girl turned her head to see Shippo rolling on the ground laughing, tears coming from his little eyes.

The rest of the group woke with a start, looking down at the kit.

"What the hell runt?" Inuyasha, angry at being awakened, grabbed the kitsune by the tail and brought him up to eye level. "What the hell do you think is so funny?"

Shippo tried to keep a strait face, he really did, but it just wasn't happening. He burst out laughing again, clutching his little stomach as tears started to fall down his face.

"What's wrong with him?" Inuyasha demanded, turning to Kagome.

Kagome couldn't handle it, ether. As soon as the hanyou turned to her the miko from the future started laughing to, quickly coming close to the level of laughter that fox youkai had reached.

"What's wrong with them?" Inuyasha demanded, turning to Sango. Sango started laughing, too, to his horror, and as soon as he turned to Miroku the monk doubled over laughing to.

"What the hell?!"

Kagome couldn't stop laughing. The sight of his face, so serious, with what she had done… Who wouldn't laugh? Inuyasha had a black curly mustache, a small beard on his chin, and swirls on his cheeks; all done in black marker.

It was odd that Miroku didn't have anything on his face…

No one explained to the hanyou what had happened as they packed up and headed into a near by village.

The whole time, Kagome was wondering just what Sango had done to Miroku.

When they got into the village, Miroku departed under the pretense of looking for shard rumors. Everyone knew he was going to find ladies to woo, but for once Sango just smiled and sent him on his way.

"Sango," Kagome said as soon as the monk was gone. "Why didn't you stop him?"

The taiji smiled. "Kagome-chan, you are aware of the new game he uses to woo women?"

"Yes…" He blindfolded himself and let the women try to read his palm, and he would describe them by the spiritual connection he felt.

"We should go watch." She said lightly.

It didn't take the girls long to catch up to Miroku, who had three young girls giggling around him.

"Now, just watch." Sango smirked, watching in glee.

He put the blindfold on, and then said, "Alright, ladies. Let's see what my palm has to tell you."

In a moment, three clear slaps could be heard, along with indignant huffs as the girls stalked away.

Miroku tore his blindfold off, looking after the girls as they stomped away. He looked absolutely bewildered.

That is, until he heard Sango laughing.

He looked up at her in a panic, and then down at his hand, his face lighting up in red a second later. He looked back up, and called out in dismay. "How very original of you, lady Sango."

He walked away, looking for a source of water to wash off the characters that spelled out, _I'm not interested in women (like you_).

Revenge? Well, it was sweetest drawn out in marker.


End file.
